Live Shows: Boston Bitdown, Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater and The Rockwell, Somerville, MA 3/7/26
Last year's Boston Bitdown was one of my unexpected musical highlights of 2025. I was only able to make it one night last year, but I was blown away by how diverse a festival of chiptune bands could be, and how much fun I had. I wanted to make it to more dates in 2026, but life and family obligations prevented me from taking in as much of the festival as I wanted. I made it on Saturday to bounce between Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater and The Rockwell. I wasn't able to take everything in, but what I saw was fun and great.
The first artist I saw wasn't chiptune at all, but still fit in with the vibe of the festival. Boston Typewriter Orchestra are one of those artists I've been meaning to check out, and Saturday night was my chance. They're a band that consists of all members playing typewriters. Yes, virtually every sound coming from the stage is coming from an old fashioned, non-electric typewriter. It's the sound from the keys, drumming on the back, bells, the return key sound, etc. It was wonderfully weird, made more so by the dissected typewriter spread out like something from Bodies: The Exhibition, and another typewriter turned theremin. They even closed with a black metal song complete with screaming. Their songs even seemed to all be about some factor of office life, making their set very weird, very creative, and very fun.
I have a weird relationship with nerdcore. I both love and hate it, and kind of hate myself for enjoying it. That being said, I hadn't seen MC Lars for well over a decade, probably closer to two. His set at Boston Bitdown had the crowd going nuts, with his songs about video games (obviously) and Edgar Allen Poe. He broke out his song with Weird Al Yankovic ("True Player for Real") and his ode to ska, "Ska is Not Dead." His set was very silly, but also very fun. As someone who sees a lot of hipster heavy indie rock shows, it was great to see an artist and audience who couldn't care less about being cool, and just having fun.
Next up was Gosh Diggity, coming in from Chicago. They were also completely different from the previous two artists, and were more of a Midwest emo/pop punk band... just with video game sounds. They played an absurdly fun and high energy set. It was like a mixture of your favorite late 90's Midwest emo bands mixed with mainstream pop punk with chiptune sounds. They fully broke through my indie rocker/music journalist hardened shell and had me smiling and enjoying myself. Their songs might be too catchy between the video game synths and sing-a-long choruses.
From there we all moved over to The Rockwell's Sega Sound Stage. Starting out this portion of Boston Bitdown was Boston's own Mobius Trip. They played a set of songs from Sega games, and their style shifted wildly from near metal to calypso. They displayed crazy musical chops during their set, and not many artists can pull off so many musical styles in one set. I'm unsure if the Sega theme was what they always do, or if it was a special set for the show's theme. Either way, very fun and musically quite impressive.
Up next was MEGA DRIVE REX, aka David Javelosa from Sega America's sound team. Dressed in a dinosaur costume, Javelosa played his classic themes from beloved video game scores. I personally don't think much of who writes video game music and how it's played, but his set was fascinating and fun, and gave a window into how video game scores are composed. Plus, he ended with a chiptune version of "Tequila," and hearing that song always guarantees a good time. He's also in Los Microwaves, who closed out the Sega Sound Stage, but I was unfortunately unable to stay for their set.
