By Brian Crecente

Last night Harmonix made E3 history, hosting a private concert at LA's historic Orpheum Theater with The Who. Frontmen Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend took the stage to the thunderous applause of the more than 1,000 invited guests. The front six rows of the venue were packed with hand-picked VIP.

We landed a seat front-row center next to MTV Multiplayer's Tracey John, GameLife's Chris Kohler and analyst Michael Pachter thanks to a bit of VIP pass flashing and general running when the door opened.

When the lights flared up Townshend and Daltrey were joined by keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick, bassist Pino Palladino, drummer Zak Starkey and guitarist Simon Townshend. The group worked through their music for an hour or two taking breaks to joke with the crowd and tease audience members.

At one point Townshend, who insisted on saying that Viacom was throwing the party, asked who in the audience was responsible for the color selection of the fret keys of the Rock Band guitars. When the designer, who was sitting in the front row, jumped up and waved his hands around, Townshend said the colors were awful.

Later Townshend said that everyone should buy their children the new Aerosmith Guitar Hero bundle, then a second later added, oh, that's the other one.

That's right, one of my bets came true. After the concert wrapped up a roadie throw out Starkey's drumsticks and I managed to snag one. Then, walking out of the venue I bumped into former AC/DC drummer Chris Slade and after talking to him for a few minutes, snagged a pic with him.
I think I can cross "best night ever" off my lists of things to do in my life.
Hit the jump to check out two very short video snippets of the group pumping out power rock. And then pause a moment for "it" which they totally killed with their curtain-dropping performance of Pinball Wizard.

Activision is looking for a Guitar Hero uber fan to pop into the next version of the game.

If you think you stand a chance you just need to make a video of yourself rocking out, then register on the Release Your Rockstar site and upload the video. Every week the site will host a montage of the best. The videos will also get their own links on the site. The one that gets the most attention, through blog posts, views, diggs, whathaveyou wins.

The winner gets a character created in his or her likeness in the next version of Guitar Hero, a new video camera, a laptop and a trip to Neversoft in California. Runner's up prizes include "VIP rock experiences", GH controllers, games, consoles faceplates and HD screens.

Hit the jump for the full release.

Release Your Rockstar

Along with a slew of other updates, the latest patch for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 version of Rock Band includes a new in-game music store. The music store will let you preview and purchase songs from inside the game by selecting the option from the main menu.

The store lets you sort all of the games' music by a selection of categories, view original album art for the masters recordings, listen to song previews and check out some extended information about specific songs, like the difficulty rating for each instrument.

We had a chance to check it out in Harmonix suite during the Game Developers Conference earlier this year and were pretty impressed. The menu allowed you to sort by artist, song, genre, album, pack and the difficulty of the song.

Bedingfield's Pocketfull of Sunshine (Simlish Mix)

Electronic Arts today announced the line-up of artists who will be making musical appearances in their upcoming Sims 2 expansion pack FreeTime. Among the list is English siren Natasha Bedingfield who actually rerecorded her recent single Pocketful of Sunshine for the game in Simlish. That's right, the song was translated to the Sims invented tongue and then she had to learn and sing it. Sounds kinda cool, though my wife's convinced she's just babbling.

Bedingfield's music video was also recreated using a Sim singer look-a-like and all of the same moves. Check out the video above for a brief interview with the singer and some voiceover outtakes. I've posted the full Simish music video on the jump.

I wrote up a pretty nice three-page package on Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 for the Rocky Mountain News before I left for Australia. Most of it is geared to a pretty general audience, meaning it's a lot of explanation, impressions and factoids, but one of the stories in the package is pretty packed with interesting details for even hard-core gamers.

I spoke with Paul DeGooyer, MTV's senior vice president of home entertainment, music and games, not once but twice to write With 'Band' in hand, MTV eyes evolution. (My harddrive crashed and I lost all my notes :( ).

In the story DeGooyer touches on some interesting things, including MTV's take on whether Rock Band will be coming to the channel as its own television show, how the Grateful Dead helped tweaked the game and Metallica's deal for the game.

Hit the jump for the details.

by John Gaudiosi

Finger Eleven lead singer Scott Anderson is a huge gamer, so he's pretty stoked that his band is the first to offer a free live concert in high definition on Xbox Live Video Marketplace. Through January 6, gamers in the U.S. can download the 58-minute set from the Berkeley Church in Toronto. The concert includes hit songs "Paralyzer," "So So Suicide," "Falling On," and "Lost My Way."

"It's pretty awesome," said Anderson. "Anyone who's tried Xbox Live Video Marketplace for a while, they've been waiting for this type of thing...I live in Canada, so I've been waiting for this type of HD content for a long time. It's a full hour of a show we did a few months ago. It's so cool. It's a couple clicks away. It's a platform that I endorse, literally. I love it, man. I'll load it up and see my face and probably cringe, but it's cool. We're living in the future, man. There's no flying cars yet, but it's still pretty cool."

Anderson has been a passionate gamer his entire life. He said he doesn't discriminate against any platform, since he's not a fan boy of any console in particular. In fact, if he had to pick a favorite gaming medium, it'd be the PC.

My son the rocker, even when he's happy he's got to have an attitude. Despite the photographic evidence, he was elated to see this arrive on our doorstep. Now to break the news to him that we leave for Australia this Saturday. And yes, Virginia, the GHII 360 controller does work with Rock Band.

Guitar Hero Music Invades iTunes, Crazy Expensive

You can now hit up iTunes to download the full set lists for Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. But wait, before you get all excited and start high-fiving strangers, check the price.

The Guitar Hero III soundtrack alone will run you $60. Guitar Hero II? $54. Guitar Hero? $43. That's because these aren't honest to goodness soundtracks, but rather a collection of all of the songs in one download list. In other words, you're paying a buck a pop for every song on the list. Kinda cruddy.

Oh, they did create an iTunes Essentials for Guitar Hero... but it's not discounted either. The 25 songs run you $24.75.

I just received a package today. Inside was a portable record player, a riddle and a red record from the "Riggs Records" label. The record is a single by Tainted Coil called Corpse of Hope.

Growing up in the 80s I knew immediatly there had to be a message hidden on the record if I played it backwards, I didn't even have to read the riddle. But while I've found the message I can't quite make it out. It seems to repeat three or four times something about Legends or Legend. And no, I don't think I hear the words Guitar Hero.

Hit the jump for the riddle and then help me figure it out.

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Feature: Rock Band, The Next MTV?

Rock Band Date and Details

Clips: Nerdcore Rising the Movie the Trailer