For those of you know don't know the story, I found out about the protomen when I was driving back home to Cincinnati to visit my family with my brother Tom and his friend Brad (you may know them as our cosplay hosts). Brad gave me a CD to play and told me it was a Megaman rock opera, and I thought "lame" but decided to listen to it anyhow. I figured it would be kind of funny and maybe somewhat cute, but not something with repeat listening value. Needless to say I thought wrong!

After hearing it once I stole the CD from him and literally did not stop listening to it for a week (and I am a guy who NEVER just repeat-listens to a CD again and again)! I checked their website, saw they were touring, and booked a flight to Memphis to see them play. (This was only two weeks after I heard them for the first time). Their live show was as awesome as their recorded stuff, so I talked to them after the show about doing an anime con. They were a little sketchy about it, since they don't want to be confused for some fandom thing, as they are a legit and serious band that just happens to have a megaman themed rock opera. They said they would check their schedules though, and get back to me.
A few weeks later they said they could do it, and I was pretty ecstatic.

Oh yeah, I should mention that two days after I went to see them a few of my other staffers drove to Nashville to see them as well!

So, while I had this awesome band, I was actually kind of afraid. At the time they didn't have much pop, and I wasn't sure if anyone would bother checking them out ahead of time for the convention or not. Historically, concerts at anime cons sort of suck. People never seem to get into it right, and they can have disappointing attendance too. The clearest example in my mind was the Pillows when they did ACen. I am a huge pillows fan, and the concert was amazing, but the audience never did much in the way of rocking out. Everyone seemed content to just nod their heads in time with the music and maybe sing along to some of the classics from FLCL, but for a room with probably 3 to 5 thousand anime fans crammed into it, I was surprised by how little energy the audience had. And that was for the motherfucking pillows, the biggest japanese rockband in America!!

I would literally have bouts of feeling sick to my stomach worrying about whether or not people would come out for the show or not. I had nightmares about there being only 30 or 40 people in the room (like other concerts I've been to at anime conventions).

So Saturday night the band shows up right as cosplay is finishing up (a good time for them to arrive). They get checked into their hotel rooms, and then when we end cosplay they start unloading their shit. There were a couple of last minute glitches to deal with. For one, they had blown an amp the night before, so I basically volunteered any of the Spoony Bards stuff to them (The Bards were total sports about it though, I have to give them another big "Thank You!" for rolling with the punches like that!). Also a couple of our XLR cables were kind of crapping out on us, and again, the Bards came to the rescue and lent us some of theirs! Last, the lead guitarists guitar fell over when they were unloading their stuff and broke somehow, so they were short one guitar! Luckily this is Anime Punch, the rock and role con, and a stupidly high percentage of the staff and attendees had their guitars with them! In the end, Scar-Toe (I think) ended up playing my DanElectro "HoDad"! I've never heard it sound so good (I should practice more) and after the show he signed it for me (in both marker and blood)

At anyrate, so after the pre-show glitches, I poke my head out the door and see two lines going all the way back to the main door of the hotel, and I was so happy! Seeing that, I knew that if nothing else, we would have a packed show! When we let the lines the room was nearly at full capacity, it was great. The question remained though, would they rock out? Apparently the answer was "yes, yes they will" because 30 seconds into the first song there was already a full on mosh pit! For the funeral song people held up lighters and cellphones, and the entire concert everyone was shouting along with the lyrics at the top of their lungs! I've been to a lot of concerts in my lifetime, and this was easily one of the best I've ever been to, both in terms of how the band played, and in how well the audience rocked out. The band was on fire, I've never heard that album sound as good as it did then, the audience was totally into it, people were throwing each other around, punching each other, helping people get back up; I do believe there was even someone who rocked out with his cock out briefly. It was intense!

If nothing else, this concert totally made the convention for me. I've never had such a good time at a show before, and I think that everyone who went to the concert had a great time. There were a few people who showed up at conops to complain about being pushed around at it, but I'm pretty sure that they don't really understand how concerts work. I think Tom said it best when he said "If you want to be up front and see the band face to face then you have to be willing to fight for it!"

When I talked to the band they said that they had a great time too, and that we were one of the best audiences they've ever had (in their words at the concert "You are the most powerful audience we've ever played against!"

Overall, I'm just so thoroughly satisfied with how things turned out with the concert. It can never be said now that the attendees of Anime Punch don't know how to rock! I've always felt that what gives Anime Punch it's spirit is the quality of the people who come here, and this is definite proof of that. The Protomen could have thrown a great concert, but without fans to rock out to it it would have only been a quarter as cool. I want to thank everyone who showed up to it for kicking ass!

I'll end this post with what might be my favorite quote from the convention, spoken to me by Chuck at the end of the show: "You have done nothing but talk about this band for the last six months and yet you still didn't properly convey to me how awesome they were!"

I had the same thoughts you did about a band that was a megaman rock opera, that they would be fanatic fans of the videogame that put together a rock opera of their favorite video game not because knew they could do it justice, but because they were fanatics of the videogame... I was proven wrong smile.gif...

Ditto here, I thought the Pillows concert was lacking in audience energy... it didn't help that they were preceded by SWEK and that all of us were kicked out beforehand... Two of my friends felt the same...

As for the Protomen, the only concert I've been to that was better was the one for Melt Banana at the Southgate House in Cincinnati, it was rockin'... Hearing the Protomen live was wonderful though, they are a band that is better to hear live than on CD. Also, enough people in the audience knew how to rock out that it felt like I was at a concert and not an anime con... nice job attendees!

I remember being shocked at how good they were. And it spread pretty quickly, my mom hears it playing while I'm sewing, and then gets my sister hooked on it. All in the same sewing session I was playing it.


That's pretty cool you're guitar got to be part of it, and signed. ^_^

I'm really glad that you got me into them, because at first I had *no* idea what to expect. Not that I doubted your taste in music, but I just did not imagine that much rock coming out of it.

So when I found out they were coming, I was pleasantly surprised. ^_^ I wish I had had time to change into proper moshing clothes, but I was able to rock out in an appropiate manner, and I had a damn fun time to boot.

They ended up being super awesome and down to earth guys, and I hope we can meet them again in the future. ^_^ Definitely one of the best concerts ever~

Yeah I do owe Mike for informing me the Protomen existed a few months back when he first announced they would be playing AP so I checked them out and was like "Holy shit! They ROCK!" so I was looking forward to seeing them through the whole con. I was not disappointed. I threw up the horns nonstop. I didn't get to stick around and talk to them or get autographs though since I wanted to get started driving home so I just bought the CD and rocked out even more on the way back to Dayton. Yeah the concert alone was worth my 25 dollars and trip up to Columbus. The rest of the ass AP kicked was just a bonus or omake if you will.

I got my water bottle signed by them! Fuck yeah! I also bought thier cd, and I've played it almost nonstop since. They are freakin awesome. Yeah thanks for getting me into them. Will they play next year?

Engineering that show was a friggin' blast. I'd love to do it again.
Mad kudos to the performers. They were awesome.

And the audience. Hooooly crap you guys had a metric f***ton of energy. That made the show that much more entertaining.

Although, I would have liked it if they would have turned their keyboard/guitar amps down just a twig. They were overpowering the vocals by leaps and bounds and I didn't have the vocals wired through a compressor. Oops.

So I just can't simply think of it as a "concert".

Maybe moreso like.. a rally. A rally of people under one roof for the sole purpose of rocking out. Or maybe a rally against the darkness.
Either way, "concert" just doesn't begin to describe it to me.

Great job Michael.

:] Favorite part of the con: The Protomen.

I got it on tape, so I took two scenes and:








It was hard to get anymore gifs to make because I had people in front of me. I had to raise the camera over my head sometimes. ^^ I loved it still.

I agree, they were totally awesome and a blast to work with.

I'm kinda surprised we managed to pull this off from a sound engineer's aspect. They really were great guys to work with.

It appears The Protomen gave a concert at MTAC(Middle Tennessee Anime Convention). So much for them being wary of performing at anime conventions!

they did 3 encore songs and crowd surfed off stage at MTAC it was cool

Well they are from Tennesee so I guess they had a lot of support from fellow members of the Volunteer State. Those lucky bastards so close to The Protomen.

I loved the Protomen. It was to bad I couldn't listen to them for the whole time because my dad got a headache and wanted to go back to the room .Mike, do they have a cd is stores?

While I'm not Mike I can answer your question. No. They do not have a CD available for purchase at any retail shops to the best of my knowledge. No major chain store carries it in any case. They only sell them at concerts or through their online store. So if you want it you will need to catch them live and pick up a copy or order it from zambooie. Protomen merch

Okay. Thank you, I'll make sure to buy a copy soon using my mom's credit card, hopefully she won't mind.

The protomen are just plain amazing and not just for downing 2 pints of Jack Daniels just like that then not affected at all.