I am back from an exhausting weekend of the nerdcore music festival known as Nerdapalooza. Over 30 acts performed over the course of two days that included MegaRan, The Protomen, The Megas, MC Front a Lot, and The Adventures of Duane and BrandO.

I’m still not too familiar with what nerdcore really is and I’ve actually only listened MegaRan and Duane and BrandO prior to this past weekend. Everyone else I listened to for the first time as they performed on stage and I’m glad that happened for a lot of the performances I saw.

Actually, let me be clear: I originally felt that nerdcore was a mutation of the hipster movement as some nerdcore fans look like hipsters. (I swear, a couple dudes were out last night ready to appear on this website.) But what really had bothered me originally is that I thought nerdcore was just taking all the geeky stuff I loved and had grown up on and it was turned into a cheap fashion statement amongst a niche crowd of posers.

As Nerdapalooza was winding down, I have come to realize that there is a lot more to Nerdcore culture than that and I still have much to learn.

But enough about that; let’s talk about the show! Saturday was kind of a disaster. I showed great nerd rage on my Twitter and I was really starting to question how this could show up as #2 Best Festival according to the readers of Orlando Weekly. Not only did everything fall more and more behind on schedule (The Protomen appeared on stage after 2am when they were supposed perform at 9:40pm), but there were a lot of shitty acts to sit through.

Who did I think sucked the most? Killer Robots. They played the same song like ten times and it never sounded good once. Their gimmick(half the performers had one including groups of pirates or ninjas) was dressing up as robots and throwing out pool toys to the crowd to use as weapons to beat on each other. Then people in monster costumes would come into the crowd to get beaten. That part was awesome because I had much nerd rage to vent. If I hit you in the face Saturday night: too bad.

Perhaps if Killer Robots had spent their costume and prop money on music lessons then they would actually have decent songs to play instead of what felt like corny background music. Maybe there is a joke in their performance somewhere that I am just not getting?

Now that that mess is out of the way, let’s move to all of the awesome stuff! Like…

Hanging out with MegaRan and listening to his awesome set on Saturday. Did you know I got him to rap about AFO in his freestyle session? Hell yeah! That dude has some serious talent. I even bought his MegaRan 9 album not once, but twice! (The other was a birthday present for a dear friend.)

Then in the small videogame area, they had a knock-off NES with justice simulator River City Ransom in and ready to play so I did! I played that game from start to finish and beat the holy hell out of every thug in River City High including Slick himself! Everyone went back to class and became honor students!

That was really it as far as Saturday highlights. I guess those pirate rappers were pretty fun to see perform but they are a faded memory compared to all the awesome things that happened on Sunday. Nerdapalooza staff learned some lessons from Saturday and got their act together to make Sunday legendary! (Though to be fair, several instances of bad luck had hit them.)

The opening acts of Sunday wore far more fun and lively than the ones just the day before. In fact, Zombies Organize! taught me about robot clitoris and that I should try licking it someday! This guy called 3PIC-1 had a song about the terrors of having sex with a 17 year old girl that totally reminded me of a former convention promoter.

NOW THINGS GET REAL EXCITING!

I was in the hotel cafe with my posse and a couple of guests and we’re talking about performances we were looking forward to later and obviously we are excited to see The Adventures of Duane and BrandO play. For many of us, they were the first nerdcore act we had ever heard. I met them both earlier as performers are easy to access and talk to at Nerdapalooza.

Anyways, I bust out the final part of their Battletoads rap and who should join me in my lyrical assault but BRANDO HIMSELF! That’s right you punk bitches I rapped Battletoads with BrandO! That dude is totally fucking cool!

The only thing more awesome than that was seeing them perform live! It was everything I had hoped for it to be and man was it a fun time! You all should of seen my Cheetahmen 2 dance I did when they did that song. Bitches were totally throwing their panties at me! (Or at least, they should have.)

Later on I saw The Megas, MC Front A Lot, and then The Protomen came out again to make up for the night before. They were all awesome to see. The Protomen are practically in a whole different universe with how they perform and play their music. I’m not just referring to nerdcore, but music in general. If Nerdapalooza had a better sound setup, that could have seriously been the best concert I have ever been to!

The man known as “Hex” and his crew got together what ended up being a legendary weekend. They worked passionately through some tough spots and in the end, it was a fantastic time had by all. There are many acts I would totally see again, and if they come back to Nerdapalooza I will be there too.