RockBand Rockathon to Raise Money for Charity at Fusion

On Sunday 15th November, a group of videogamers will be “performing” a marathon Rock Band setlist on the mammoth digital screen at Fusion in the Forum, Norwich.  The gamers will be playing the popular Rock Band video game, where players use a microphone, guitar and drum controllers to rock out to their favourite songs.  This is no ordinary gaming session though – the gamers, collectively known as “Cheesemint” will be performing 100 songs, non-stop, with no breaks for nearly eight hours.

Cheesemint are a group of gamer friends who meet socially to produce web-videos, they are dedicated Rock Band fans who have decided to take up one of the game's hardest challenges – The Endless Setlist – in order to make money for their chosen charity, the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust.  The Endless Setlist is 84 songs of varying difficulty, from the very easy building to the incredibly difficult.  The players will be topping off the marathon with an encore of 16 of their favourite other songs, and they'll be playing all this for the first time in front of the public.

“Fusion has given us a great opportunity to not only play in front of the enormous digital screen, but also to play in a public place where people can come and watch, and hopefully donate a little to the charity,” says Dave Chapman, one of the founders of Cheesemint.  There will be additional players in case any particular player falters and collapses, and it is hoped that another game will be set up for the public to come along and have a go with the Rock Band experience for a small donation.

"We should point out that none of us are musicians," Dave continues, "though some of us have experience of playing a little in the past, none of us are professionals.  We just like playing video games and Rock Band is possibly one of the most enjoyable experiences we've discovered on the XBox and we thought with would be a great way to raise money for a charity that has particularly close meaning for us."

The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust (SDBTT), since being formed in 1996, has become the leading charity dedicated to adult and childhood brain tumour research in the UK, raising awareness,  funds for research, as well as support to patients and families of those diagnosed. The SDBTT is Registered Charity 1128354, and further information about the SDBTT can be found at http://www.braintumourtrust.co.uk 

Rock Band is created by Harmonix, founded in 1995 and now part of MTV Networks, formed initially not to develop videogames but to create new ways for non-musicians to experience the unique joy that comes from making music.  Rock Band 2 was released summer 2008 and is close to having over 1000 tracks of music that can be played in the game.  (www.rockband.com) 

Cheesemint is the collective name for a group of local gamers in Norwich (www.cheesemint.com).

Please sponsor us and help us raise some money for an excellent cause!