NBrid

Summer is the peak concert touring season. From Milwaukee's über cool Summerfest, to the return of Lollapalooza. Of course there's the Vans Warped Tour, and the Nintendo Fusion Tour... wait, what?!

Xbox is the major sponcer of this year's Lollapalooza which includes such acts as Jane's Addiction, Incubus, Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age, and Jurassic 5. Sony is a minor sponcer of the always great Vans Warped Tour which has the likes of AFI, All-American Rejects, The Ataris, Dropkick Murpheys, Face to Face, Less Than Jake, Pennywise, Rancid, Suicide Machines, and many more. So Nintendo, always late to the table these days, wants a concert tour to call their own. I will give Nintendo some credit though since the official title of the tour is "Nintendo Fusion Tour", neither of the other two have their name in the tour's marquee.

Let's look at who's on the Nintendo sponcered concert tour shall we.

Headlining will be... Evanscence!

"A groundbreaking fusion of music, video gaming and culture, the tour features one of the hottest bands in the country: Evanescence." -nintendofusiontour.com

One of the hottest bands? Hmm. Maybe one of the hottest songs, but it's starting to slip. And there is certainly nothing "groundbreaking" about this tour. They had plenty of games at last year's Warped, and I'm sure Xbox will be a big presence at Lollapalooza. At least it's not called "Fusion" because they are trying to promote Metroid Fusion.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoy some of Evanescence's stuff including of course the ever popular "Bring Me to Life" off their debut album "Fallen". Certainly though not someone I'd buy tickets to go see (I may stop off and check out part of their set at Summerfest however). Their hit single is also somewhat misleading. It sounds more like Linkin Park while many of their other songs have almost more of a hard-edged Tori Amos feel. So if a Linkin Park-Tori Amos hybrid sounds interesting, check them out. They're a decent enough band.

The other "big" act will be Cold. I don't like Cold. At all. Sure "Just Got Wicked" is a good song off the Jet Grind Radio soundtrack (or their album "13 Ways to Bleed on Stage"), but the rest is formulistic crap in my opinion. I can't stand their new song "Stupid Girl" off their latest CD.

Rounding out the bill include acts like Revis, Cauterize and Finger Eleven; probablly depending on who makes the show in your particular town.

The most interesting part might be Nintendo who of course will have GameCube's and GBA's on display for people to play. It might be a chance to play Mario Kart and other games before they are released? "Game Zero?" (Yeah, keep wishing.) Nothing has been said on what may be shown on the tour though.

"We're really looking forward to doing this tour. When we're on the road, we play music all night and Nintendo all day. This tour lets us bring two of our favorite things together." -Amy Lee of Evanescence, I wonder how much they are getting for doing this tour? Hmm...

It really isn't fair to compare this to some of the other tours who have more bands on the bill, but this does seem to fit Nintendo's style. You may not have a lot to pick from, but at least one of the songs you will hear is the huge, well polished, and mainstream "Bring Me to Life." Reminds me of GameCube and Zelda... I always did feel that song reminded me of an epic RPG game.

The tour will kick off August 4th. The known tour stops so far are: L.A. (Aug. 4), Phoenix, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit. Watch the Nintendo Fusion Tour website for more additions (supposedly 25 in total) and concrete dates for those already announced.

I'll be skipping this one (though you can catch me at Lollapalooza and the Warped Tour of course), but there may be some interested in this. Be warned that since they are calling it "Nintendo Fusion Tour 2003", there may be a sequal...

(source : GamerFeed)