By Ross Dougherty
On December 11, 2010, gamers and music aficionados from across the country gathered at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco to celebrate Ümloud!, a Rock Band concert to benefit Child’s Play.
For a $150 donation, bands of up to seven people could take to the main stage and play the song of their choice from Rock Band’s extensive 2000+ song library. Bands that chose this route also had their pictures taken by a professional photographer in front of Ümloud’s paparazzi wall, a custom introduction before their performance, and a whole bag of swag to fight over back stage. Many bands chose to go with full themes and costumes, including bands of industrial German nihilists, beach partiers, 80’s hair metal, a whole band of Godzillas, and one band (that happened to include this reporter) in full Lord of the Rings garb.
One band with the luck and cash to win Ümloud’s headliner auction received all this plus the FULL rock star treatment, including all of the above plus a professionally filmed mockumentary, their own personal booth at the DNA Lounge, and got to play two songs on stage. You can find out all about the winning band, Broasis, here: http://umloud.org/bands/headliner.
Last year the event earned more than $7000 for Child’s Play. The official total for this year was unavailable at the time of writing, but I have no doubt it far exceeded that number. Also unavailable are the official pictures and videos of the event. I will update when those are available. For now, you can check out some pictures I managed to snap from the balcony as well as some fan made media at the links below.
Ümloud official site: http://umloud.org/
Child’s Play: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
Fan made Youtube Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/user/UmloudSF#g/c/0764F78C624B5129
Pictures on Flikr: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=umloud&s=rec
