"...and I hope we passed the audition."

So, I will fess up. I'm not much a fan of Rock Band and its relatives. I've played it, it is an OK way to spend time, but I haven't embraced this half-way point between air guitar and real chord progression. Maybe playing REAL guitar has ruined it for me, or that I recognize this game's real ancestor.

Simon.

You heard me. Not the Pre-CBS Fender Stratocaster. Not Woody Guthrie's folk guitar, emblazoned with the sticker "This Machine Kills Fascists". Not Dylan's Gibson Nick Lewis Special (or his later Fender Strat Reissue he went electric with). The origin of the Rock Band-style game is that chirping little four-color disk that dares you to keep up with it. Heck, it even uses the same color scheme.

But anyway, I come not to praise Rock Band but to marvel at the opening cinematic for its newest version: Rock Band: The Beatles. Now being an old grump who remembers when the Beatles first landed, you'd think I'd be dubious about the entire retro operation, but I have to say it is bloody marvelous, encapsulating the groups' career, with shout-outs to the movies and public appearances.

Bloody marvelous, I say. Go check it out.

More later