You are ten years old (or your children or nephews are), you have all day ahead of you and it's Mario Kart day. The shells, bananas, and spikes awaken joys and frustrations in front of the console. Maybe you don't realize it, but the music that accompanies the games on Playa Beach or Barranco Champiñón will mark you and you will remember it when you grow up.
If you want to listen to these melodies again while playing the legendary console game, you must know Press Start Project, a project led by eight students from ESMUC in Barcelona who organize Mario Kart tournaments while playing the 28 songs from the video game. The group's next event is this Sunday, June 14, at 6 p.m. at Nau Bostik, in Sagrera, Barcelona. Behind it all are the following final-year Jazz and Modern Music Performance students: Arnau Prats, David Llop, Lluís Marcet, Joan Mominó, Gerard Carulla, Pau Garcia, Ignasi Nebot, and David Herrero.
“Mario Kart music offers live play”
The project was born in Barcelona in 2023 to, as the group says on Instagram, “play the best video game soundtracks, from Mario Kart, through Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time, Persona 5, or Hollow Knight.” David Herrero has been a member of the collective for a year and explains that they now mainly focus on organizing tournaments and concerts based on Mario Kart. “The video game music is very cool, very energetic, and offers a lot of live play,” he says.
And where do the songs come from? It turns out that in the United States, video game music has been very popular for years thanks to The 8-Bit Big Band, a reference band for Press Start Project. “It took me a bit to do the arrangements, but once you get into it, you get to work. There are people who have dedicated themselves to uploading them to websites and I just had to check that they were good,” explains the musician and gamer who was in charge of creating the scores. In fact, he was the one who got the band involved in playing these pieces in the Mario Kart tournaments that Herrero had been organizing in Barcelona for years. Since last November, they have taken this format to other places in Barcelona such as La Kontra de Gràcia or Bar Afterlife Esport, and even to Badajoz, at the Animation and Video Game Festival.
For now, they are happy with this new edition at Nau Bostik, as it is the first time they have gathered so many people. Specifically, there will be 64 players and the rest of the attendees will watch and enjoy the concert. In addition, as he says, they have "thrown the house out the window", as there will be prizes for the best and the final winner will take home a Switch 2. All this is done with the collaboration of the Smash Barcelona collective, who bring the consoles and organize the tournament while they play the saxophone, piano, guitar, double bass and more instruments. For those interested, it should be known that there are two types of tickets: one that is general and includes a drink and the other is to play in the tournament.
Music that creates nostalgia
And how does the audience react? According to them, many get emotional, get excited and at the gatherings, joy and shouts for those who lose or win are mixed with the emotion of listening to the music of Bowser's Castle again. "These songs go very deep and connect with nostalgia," comments Herrero.
As the musicians observe, on the one hand, attendees feel nostalgic about playing these video games again that transport them to the 90s and 2000s and, on the other hand, they enjoy the musical quality. "In general, it's hard to leave home to go to concerts and, however, we see that people like to come for the nostalgia they feel and for the fact of hearing it live," adds Herrero. This very positive reception from the public makes them think that they would like video game music to spread more in Barcelona and, in general, in Europe, as they believe it would gather a lot of people.
By the way, if you can't go to the Nau Bostik concert or want to warm up, you can listen to the EP PRESS START, which includes five songs from different video games they recorded in 2024.
