“Still Alive” with Jonathan Coulton, Leo and Merlin

Feb 24, 2008 Author: Veronica | Filed under: babble, funny, video, video games

As you may have gathered from my tweets of late, I was given the amazing opportunity to play Jonathan Coulton’s song “Still Alive” on Rock Band with Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, and of course Jonathan! Horrifyingly, it was also on stage and in front of about 600 people at the Great American Music Hall here in San Francisco! I was on guitar (in the video, my part is on the right), Jonathan was on (duh) vocals, Leo on bass, and Merlin on drums.

We were soooo close to getting through the song! 99% isn’t bad, and if we had more time to practice (instead of having only played the song once!) I’m sure we would have made it. But it was a ton of fun, and I even saved the band a couple of times with my overdrive

But I want to thank Jonathan for giving me one of the most memorable experiences I’ll ever have. I’m a huge fan of his music, and I got to live out my rock star dreams for real. Not much can beat that!

Jonathan Coulton performs “Still Alive” in Rock Band from Joy Stiq

Special thanks to Chris from Joystiq for recording the video! Go check out his post for more details.

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47 Responses for "“Still Alive” with Jonathan Coulton, Leo and Merlin"

Veronica plays meta-Rock Band with Jonathan Coulton » Ryan Block February 24th, 2008 at 2:51 pm 1

[...] awesome I find the real-life on-stage combination of it, one of my favorite games (Rock Band), Veronica, and Jonathan Coulton, as they belt it out along with Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann. Even better was [...]
Greg February 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pm 2

That was amazing! I am so excited for this song. Veronica, you were awesome saving both Leo and Merlin. Do you remember which difficulties you each played on?
Veronica February 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pm 3

I was on medium, and I think everyone else was on easy.
robert February 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pm 4

You are incredible at that game Ms. Belmont I swear.
Joel February 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm 5

I think even Veronica would admit to not being that awesome at the game. Especially compared to some of the insane videos I have seen on YouTube. People are crazy.

Still a really cool performance, though!
Veronica February 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm 6

Joel - No, I’m awesome… on medium (and sometimes hard)
Jim Lunsford’s Lunsford Land » Blog Archive » “Still Alive” with Jonathan Coulton, Leo and Merlin - Veronica Belmont February 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm 7

[...] “Still Alive” with Jonathan Coulton, Leo and Merlin - Veronica Belmont [...]
“Still Alive” with Jonathan Coulton, Leo and Merlin February 24th, 2008 at 3:58 pm 8

[...] Original post by Veronica [...]
Myst3r1o February 24th, 2008 at 4:21 pm 9

Awesome, Veronica! That is too cool!

I don’t own Rock Band, and wasn’t really planning on buying the game, but now that “Still Alive” is going to be downloadable, I may consider it.
Kevho1 February 24th, 2008 at 4:28 pm 10

great performance
When I started reading the post, I thought you were really going to play guitar… well you did “play” in a way
and it’s even better than if it was a real guitar

you have probably already seen it check this out
dailymotion
Tread Heavily - Veronica plays "Still Alive" with Jonathan Coulton February 24th, 2008 at 4:30 pm 11

[...] Here is the link to the blog I found it on. Bookmark It Hide Sites [...]
Joel February 24th, 2008 at 4:44 pm 12

Veronica - I concede the point. You did after all carry the band.
JimJimBinks February 24th, 2008 at 5:27 pm 13

This wasn’t a triumph, but I would call it a huge success. Keep on trying ’till you run out of cake.
Cam February 24th, 2008 at 6:43 pm 14

Hey, I’m one of the hosts of the radio show you did the tech news for this week. Thank you so much it was great, we played it twice although our show was cut short, we had press access to an Obama Rally and my friend got to do the white balance check for the networks at the “Change Podium.” I write too much. Thanks!-Cam
Karl Robstad February 24th, 2008 at 7:46 pm 15

[Band Savior]

lol
Quiksave - Jo Co, Leo, Merlin, & Veronica do “Still Alive” February 24th, 2008 at 8:20 pm 16

[...] Belmont do “Still Alive” from little-game-that-could, Portal. What a stunt! V-sauce blogs about saving the band with her overdrive. Video down [...]
Scott Perez-Fox February 24th, 2008 at 9:35 pm 17

Awesome! Can I have your life?
Jonathan Coultan performs Still Alive with Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, and Veronica Belmont in Rock Band : Mile High Soapbox February 24th, 2008 at 10:48 pm 18

[...] can read more about Veronica’s experience on her blog. If you haven’t seen any of Veronica’s Video Podcast on Mahalo Daily, on a couple of [...]
googleman81 February 24th, 2008 at 11:31 pm 19

that was awesome. i really like the song (while still not having gotten to that point in the game) and i did not know you can modify the difficulty for each individual player in rock band. i guess its like the errors of the people in easy mode count less and the person in medium basically scores most of the points. companies should be structured like that :D.
just kidding, i have no idea how companies should be structured…
John B. February 25th, 2008 at 5:37 am 20

Dude, that was kick-ass! I loved Leo’s threads, too. That looked like tons o’ fun!
Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » Me on TWiT February 25th, 2008 at 6:58 am 21

[...] got the band back together (Leo, Merlin Mann, Veronica Belmont) to discuss our triumph/epic fail in Rock Band at the San Fran show Friday night. Tom Merritt of CNET and Ryan Block of Engadget were on the line [...]
Derek UG February 25th, 2008 at 7:35 am 22

Wow, I didn’t know Simon Cowell played the drums… Veronica great job saving the band.
RobbieTheGeek February 25th, 2008 at 8:07 am 23

That was a lot of fun to watch after listening to TWIT, but is it me or does Leo look like Benny Hill?
Kato February 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am 24

Awesome! Way to rock out!

I wonder if this means we might see some of Jonathan Coulton’s other songs being made available for Rock Band (”Code Monkey” hint hint “Re: Your Brains”)
Rob Enderle February 25th, 2008 at 9:23 am 25

I dont really care about Coulton (yes, I know geeks think he is something special) since every small hamlet has average musicians like him but this was so worth just to see Leo in cowboy drag.
Casey McKinnon February 25th, 2008 at 10:14 am 26

That was AWESOME!!! Looking forward to SXSW…
GRiZZ February 25th, 2008 at 10:50 am 27

Jeez V, show some emotion next time! :o)
Ryan February 25th, 2008 at 11:18 am 28

Wow. Time to practice. That looked like it was on easy. You guys should put one in the Mahalo offices.
Brian February 25th, 2008 at 12:56 pm 29

Oh God - that’s my head in the middle of the screen. I didn’t even know I HAD a bald spot. I’m having one of those “don’t know whether to laugh or cry” moments.

Also, the minute Leo bombed out for the third time, I knew this was going to be awesome. “3rd failure…about 90% done…oh, this is going to be hilarious one way or the other.”
Veronica February 25th, 2008 at 1:04 pm 30

If it’s any consolation, Brian, your shirt was awesome.
Michelle February 25th, 2008 at 1:18 pm 31

Way to back up that air guitar crown!
Bane February 25th, 2008 at 1:23 pm 32

(Friend of Brian’s)

The answer is “Laugh,” we helped him with that

The show was awesome, and the rock band Still Alive was a nice touch.
Brian February 25th, 2008 at 5:27 pm 33

I will tie my awesome shirt around my head and all will be ok again.
Andy Bates February 25th, 2008 at 11:07 pm 34

Veronica, I confess to not knowing who you were before the show on Friday night. But I’m big fans of Merlin and Leo, and they appear to love you, so I love you by extension. Plus, you were singularly impressive at saving both of them from epic failure, simultaneously no less. And finally, thank you for bringing up my name on the latest TWiT! The whole night was just incredible, and it was great to see you having so much fun up there. I’ll definitely be checking out your blog and podcast in the future.
Farseer February 26th, 2008 at 10:59 am 35

Good job Veronica - you rock!

Watching this video, I was excited to see that this game will be downloadable in the future, but at the same time, I felt bad for Leo. He was hitting all the notes, but if you watch his pick hand, he was flicking the strum bar, causing it to pop up and register the note twice almost every time. It penalized him each time that it happened.

Regardless - good saves - keep on rockin’.
Farseer February 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am 36

when I said that this “game” would be downloadable, I meant this “song”. My god, you’d think that I believe the internet is a series of tubes or something…
googleman81 February 26th, 2008 at 8:08 pm 37

ok, i will definitely stop double posting from now on, since it creates either the impression i have a lot of useful stuff to say or that i am totally attention seeking, i just had to show you this little video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OFIWagOkGM&
SCpalmeto February 26th, 2008 at 10:15 pm 38

It was fun watching you and Leo rock out with Coulton on “Still Alive”. I love that song. So when are you guys going out on tour? Ha ha.
Overheard, rocking out at SXSW - Veronica Belmont February 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm 39

[...] you missed my Rock Band skills at the Jonathan Coulton show, fear not! Casey McKinnon has assembled a super group of female talent to rock SXSW this year! [...]
One More Outing « citizen geek February 27th, 2008 at 5:53 pm 40

[...] probably already seen this, but Jonathan Coulton performs Still Alive on Rock Band. [via Veronica Belmont] Veronica’s actually quite excellent on the guitar. [...]
Jonathan Coulton performing Still Alive on Rock Band! : February 28th, 2008 at 9:45 am 41

[...] Veronica Belmonts Webpage TWiT.TV with Leo Laporte [...]
Alex February 29th, 2008 at 9:24 am 42

Un bacio dall’Italia!
bellissimi!!!!
so cool, love from Italy
miss_lain February 29th, 2008 at 9:26 pm 43

Leo likes to play dress-up, eh? It was fun to watch you guys ‘rock out.’ I’m glad you enjoyed yourself and relieved to find you didn’t throw yourself into and onto the audience like so many of your rock star peers.

Maybe next time you guys could kick it up a notch with some Barracuda, and a few of your signature above the head leg kicks would be nice as long as you don’t scare Leo too much.
Nia March 4th, 2008 at 12:52 pm 44

Thank you! Fantastic!
Mickipedia March 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm 45

I love you. But you are going down at NNN rock band!
Tony Martinelli April 13th, 2008 at 3:13 am 46

I listened to you guys talk about this on TWIT but just saw it today because of a Twitteriffic install I did. Now I understand Rock Hero. You guys have a great sense of humor.
Casey McKinnon May 14th, 2008 at 7:26 am 47

I just came hunting for this since I’ve FINALLY played Portal! This is doubleplusgood now that I actually know what it is!!