A bunch of “American Idiots” proved they could shred with the best of them last night.
The cast of Broadway’s Green Day-inspired musical stepped off the stage and joined hard core Rock Band players to let loose to the Green Day edition of the game at the Village Pourhouse on Thursday night.
“[Singing in the show] is really fun, but it’s also really fun when you don’t have set moves to do,” said Chase Peacock, who performs in the ensemble and understudies the lead, St. Jimmy. “You can just rock out.”
Event promoter and video game producer Miguel Molinari took his Rock Band-themed bar parties to the Pourhouse’s new theater district spot, bringing with him his regular following of Playstation and Xbox rockers. A lot of loyal followers attend the bar’s downtown location to play every Tuesday night.
"We're a really good group of people and we're really good at video games," said Rock Band groupie Sarah Henry. "We're kind of gamer nerds."
Don’t judge -- these gamers are serious. Many of the guys and gals who showed up are singing, plastic guitar-strumming, button-pressing champions. Molinari and his team won first place and $10,000 at the MTV/Harrah’s Total Rock, Total Rewards nationals last year and placed again at fourth last spring (Henry was also in this year's team).
“This is kinda embarrassing,” said Molinari about getting crowned for gold. “I took a bunch of regulars and … we ended up winning the entire thing.”
Marketing Director Cari Decoons said she thought it only appropriate to invite their Tony-nominated Green Day-singing neighbors to the punk fest. About 11 cast members stopped by, singing head-banging hits like "Jesus of Suburbia," "Letterbomb" and "Give Me Novacaine."
The Broadway stars take their Rock Band seriously, too. Peacock admitted that back in high school he once thought he was good enough to win a competition. He rocked out to at least four songs in a row Thursday night.
“I’ve only actually played the Green Day [edition of] Rock Band once but I’ve been dying to play it again,” the actor said.
