E-Mail This Article to a Friend Advantage: rock The Advantage does it old school at the Middle East BY MITCH KRPATA

I've had some great live music experiences at the Middle East Upstairs. It was there that post-rockers Enon single-handedly restored my faith in live music before an audience of about 30 people. That was also the venue where I caught the first North American performance by British garage-rock savants Clinic. But I have never, in six years in and around the Boston club scene, witnessed such a large, enthusiastic crowd at the Middle East Upstairs like the one that amassed for the Advantage last Monday night.

The Advantage, who I can only assume is named after the classic arcade-style NES controller, is the latest band (after the Minibosses and the NESkimoes) to devote themselves to rocking out on tunes from Nintendo games. The difference is that the musicians in the Advantage are also members of established rock bands -- for example, Advantage drummer Spencer Seim plays guitar for indie-rockers Hella. Perhaps it's because of this that they are much tighter musically than their colleagues.

Starting this Saturday, November 13th, the Advantage is supporting Pinback on a West-Coast tour, but for their headlining Boston show they were saddled with some pretty weak opening acts. The first band, New Hampshire's own Night Wounds, was about the most wretched garbage I've ever heard. I can't really describe this mess except to compare it to the sound of some infernal machine harvesting the souls of the wicked — except that description makes Night Wounds seem kind of cool. Much better was the second band, Confusatron, who specialized in mashed-up covers of songs from all over the spectrum. They led from the introductory riff of "Johnny B. Goode" into the Super Mario Bros theme so smoothly that it seemed the two were twins separated at birth. Less successful were their original songs, which sounded to me like nothing so much as uninspired metal.

Not that it mattered. The house was packed only for the Advantage, and the fans were serious about it. As the band took the stage, one zealous fan shouted, "Fuck the Minibosses!" I saw one kid wearing a red hoodie with the Nintendo logo adorning his chest. The fans were so into the music, with different people erupting into cheers each time they recognized a new song, that I wondered why such obviously hardcore gamers were at the Middle East instead of waiting in line for Halo 2 (which was officially released about three songs into the Advantage's set). Then again, I suppose Halo 2 would still be on store shelves the next day, but the band would have moved on to Washington, DC.

And the sacrifice of precious hours of Halo time was worth it. Whereas the Minibosses use NES tunes as a starting point and amp up the rock (sometimes improvising beyond the two or three-minute loop that actually occurs in the original game), the Advantage is surprisingly faithful. They feed their guitars through various effects devices to achieve an unmistakably MIDI flavor, and the musicianship is first-rate. Their rendition of the moon-level theme from the NES Duck Tales game is a thing of beauty.

Not content to play music from only the most popular games we remember from the eight-bit golden age, the Advantage surprised the crowd by rocking tunes from forgotten classics such as Marble Madness. Even during the soundcheck, one of the guitarists absent-mindedly belted out the theme music from the little-remembered Goonies II cart. (In fact, I was surprised to find how few of the songs I recognized instantly.) But they also played, among other Mega Man selections, my all-time favorite video-game theme: the first level of Dr. Wily's castle in Mega Man 2. It was incredible.

I'm not sure why bands like the Advantage resonate so strongly. Maybe it's simply the nostalgia factor, or maybe their shows allow gaming veterans a sense of community we were missing in the 1980s. All I know for sure is that the Advantage seriously rocks.

For more on the Advantage, visit their web site at www.theadvantageband.com