Rock Band 2

BLADDER OF STEEL --- Expert Bass Based Guide

You get this achievement by beating the endless setlist without pausing the game or failing a song. Make sure you can pass the songs before you start! People have done this alone but I highly recommend that you have a friend come by and be ready to take over for you when you need a break. If you're going at it alone check Matrarch's guide for information on pauses where you can take a quick bathroom break etc.

If you're going for this on bass (which I recommend) make sure you practice all the tough bass songs first. Go ahead and play the Bass Legend setlist in Band World Tour and the Impossible Bass Challenge.

I recommend bass because guitar is generally the most popular instrument so the most people can play is well, and if you pick bass the first 60+ songs are a cakewalk. It'll be a bit more boring if you don't like bass but you should still be nice and rested when you reach the tough songs at the end, which is where it counts.

You don't want to already be worn out when you get to the really tough songs! If you don't care about your score/stars feel free to half-ass the easy songs to save your energy. I know there were quite a few where I would just stop strumming altogether for a few seconds for the sake of not wearing myself out.

Big songs to look out for include:

Visions by Abnormality
Panic Attack by Dream Theater
Chop Suey by System of a Down
Shoulder to the Plow by Breaking Wheel
Shackler's Revenge by Guns 'n' Roses
Peace Sells by Megadeth
Battery by Metallica

If you can beat Visions and Panic Attack the rest shouldn't give you much trouble but they're worth trying out in advance just in case!

This guide was written with the assumption that you'll be going for this and platinum artist at the same time. If you're going for them separately, then just get Bladder of Steel on a lower difficulty than the one you normally play on. You should have no problem getting it.

WARNING: Visions is ridiculous on hard guitar! Possibly harder than expert! You've been warned!

Details to keep in mind:

- Roughly 6 hours and 15 minutes long, varying a bit depending on load times per console. Installing decreases them by a bit but you'll only save a few minutes doing that...you might be better off keeping it uninstalled so you have longer breaks between songs.

- This Setlist is PRE-SET. It contains the 84 on-disc songs in the same order every time. This does not include DLC!

- Hitting the guide button or unplugging your controller during the Endless Setlist 2 count as pausing and will stop you from getting this achievement!

- You can unlock Bladder of Steel on any difficulty, but I recommend expert if possible so you don't have to make multiple runs for all the achievements.

- You should avoid using Select to activate Overdrive unless you're using the GHWT guitar. It's way too easy to accidentally hit Start which is the last thing you want going wrong 80 songs in!

- If you play in co-op with multiple people it only counts as failing if you fail as a band. If the song hasn't been stopped yet you can still save people who have failed out by activating overdrive and keep going!

- Use a wired controller! You don't want your batteries running out and ruining any chance of you getting the achievement! If you must use a wireless controller then make sure you replace the batteries with new ones before you start.

- If you're worried you'll press the guide button while playing try taping a piece of cardboard over it (this works especially well with the Xplorer because the guide button and other extra controls are in a lowered, rectangular section.

- Slightly off topic but I'll mention it because people usually hunt this achievement at the same time: If you play on expert but your friend plays with you on Medium, you will both get the achievement for completing the ES2 on medium! It only counts the lowest ranked player!

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TwistedFate's Advice:

Do it first thing in the morning. After not eating all night while you sleep, once you do your morning routine you will be as empty as you will be all day. This is the time to strike.

No soda, coffee or energy drinks. Most soda, coffee and energy drinks contain caffeine. Caffeine is a diuretic, which means it will increase your need to pee. Caffeine also dehydrates you, which makes you want to drink more. Water is best.

No salty snacks. If you must have a snack, avoid chips and salty stuff. The salt will increase your need to drink. I recommend fruit, specifically fruits like grapes. They are small, you can grab 1-2 and pop them in your mouth between songs. They also don't dry out/turn brown/etc... if you leave them sitting around in a bowl for a couple of hours. Strawberries are good if you remove the caps first. Blueberries are fine. Cherries are good. Any berry really.

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Below are videos of two of the tougher tracks, Visions and Panic Attack, but I'd still recommend that you check out all the songs on my list before you start the Endless Setlist 2...a few of them aren't particularly tough but in many cases have certain tricky bits that you could get caught off guard by and you might not be able to adjust quick enough to avoid failing. Better to be over prepared than under prepared! You might not agree with me now but you will if you fail 5 or 6 hours into the setlist!

If you're doing ESL2 on vocals, keep in mind those songs which have long tapping passages. Rush's "The Trees" or Silversun Pickups "Lazy Eye" both have fairly long sections toward the end of the songs where you can run to the bathroom while that section plays and the next song loads up. Keep in mind that "Lazy Eye" doesn't finish on a tapping section, but the section is long, so you should have time enough if needed.

Bassists- There's a long lead in during Master Exploder, so you can get a tiny break from the end of the previous song till you start in Master Exploder.

I know Nine in the Afternoon has a fairly lengthy non drums section in it, but it's early on in ESL2, so that may not be much help!

Guitar- As per EnkiduV3 (thanks!), be aware that Let There Be Rock has two good sized breaks built in, so feel free to catch a quick break then.

I know that a lot of people *want* to get both the Bladder of Steel and the Platinum Artist at the same time... and that's admirable. The ESL2 takes so friggin' long to do... why would you want to do it TWICE?

Well the answer is simple... when you hit the brick wall that is Visions (explained well above), you may end up losing both achievements at one shot, 5 hours into your session. And that would suck. (Believe me, I should know... a few days after getting the ESL2 on vocals, I tried the Bladder, and got interrupted near the end because of RL, on two separate occasions! I'm looking to try it again soon.)

If you think Visions isn't so terrible, then this warning doesn't apply to you. However, if you're like me, you'll take the more conservative approach and do the two separately. Platinum Artist is quite a bit easier on vocals than any other instrument. The problem with vocals is that by singing for over 6 hours straight for the Bladder, you literally will hurt your voice, and could fail toward the end just because your throat gives out. That would also suck.

Instead, my suggestion would be to do them in two sessions, as painful as that may be to hear. Assuming you're not a Rock God (in which case you probably aren't reading this guide anyway :-), you can get Platinum on vocals (or bass, with caution that you may fail Visions a few times along the way). That way you can take breaks. (For my ESL2, I think I actually did it over 3 days, stopping whenever my throat was getting sore.) Then in a different session, you can get the Bladder playing a different instrument on medium, like bass.

Don't strain yourself, though. The two achievements are separate. The Bladder is cruel enough as it is. If they had a Platinum Bladder, now that would be quite the challenge. In the meantime, take the two separately.

(Those of you leaving comments about how you did them both at the same time, seriously, my hat's off to you. Congratulations!!)

If you want to look at this from a practical point of view, then you'll like my solution. The truth is there is too much risk playing any instrument on expert and expecting to get the Bladder of Steel chevo (BoS for short) AND the Platinum chevo (for reasons see the solutions above aka last 4 songs). Either you'll fail, someone will call you, you'll need to do something, or you will need to eat and/or go to the restroom. Why put yourself though all that? You will inevitably have to run through the endless setlist twice. Here's what me and my friends did.

We set up drums and guitar both on medium difficulty. There were three of us but only two of us had xbox live accounts, so we decided to make a night out of it. We kicked back and had some beers as well as some chicken wings as snacks. Every 3 songs we rotated from guitar to drums to rest. This allowed us to play in 6 song stretches and give the much needed rest and change of pace as you progress into the songlist. The guy resting also was making beer runs to and from the fridge whenever the other guys ran out. 6hrs and 15 mins later, we had the achievement and quite a lot of fun doing it. It makes the time go by so much faster which is always a good thing.

I plan on going back myself and going for the Platinum Chevo soon. But honestly since you are allowed to fail and still get that one, I highly recommend going for the BoS on medium difficulty with a group of friends.

Again, this was a surefire way of getting this chevo. Sure it means having to play through the setlist twice to get all chevos, but the BoS seems much harder to get than the Platinum chevo. Take the pressure out of the equation and GUARANTEE that you'll get it

If you wanna be a hero, go for it on expert on bass. If you wanna be a superhero, go for it on drums.

Few tips that people might have missed.

1. You can fail in-song as long as you have a teammate to save you. Obviously if you fail 3 times then you're done. If you are even close to failing more than twice on any song then quite frankly you are either too drunk or not good enough for this chevo.

2. Play locally on your xbox. While we were all in one location we played "live tour mode" and there were a few times where my xbox froze.....and then kept going......you can only imagine how that made our hearts sink right before the rage that would have followed. Do yourself a favor, select "local tour mode"

3. Make sure that you talk to your friends before hand and agree that should anyone fail mid-song, the person resting immediately comes in and takes over for that song. You should especially do this if you know one of your friends is weaker or if you know that their egos supercede their skill. By making this pact early, you make sure that everyone checks their pride at the beginning. We're talking about 6+ hrs playing for 1 chevo. Now's not the time for pride. Fortunately, this only happened a couple of times with us and all of us were man enough to step aside or step up and finish the song.

4. We received $89k for doing this, We then played the Rolling Stones playlist in Shanghai (8 song set list) and got the final $11K to get the "Clothes to the Edge" chevo. By going for BoS this way you'll already get Vinyl Artist and BoS. But if you insist on grouping as many chevos as you can, then play an extra 30 mins and go buy $100K worth of guitars at once.....for all you overachievers out there.

I just recently got this achievement by getting this with the Platinum Artist at the same time. I got this achievement by playing Expert Bass with a friend. I began by beating the first 35 songs myself (about 2 and a half hours) and then my friend came over and did about 10 songs himself and then we alternated pairs of songs until the end. It took approximately 6 hours and 10 minutes (with the songs loading off my hard drive rather than the disk).

In preparation for this, we looked at the setlist and two days before played through the final 8 or 10 songs to make sure that we could do it. We each decided what songs we would be responsible for at the end (I had Visions, he had Panic Attack for instance) and I made sure that I could beat Visions with no problem. My suggestion is to go through on Bass, because other than Visions, Chop Suey, Shoulder To The Plow and Panic Attack (and maybe Shackler's Revenge), the vast majority of songs are easy if you play on Expert Guitar.

Remember that if you pause or fail a song you will not get this achievement. I made sure that I changed batteries on my wireless guitar before I started and was able to comfortably beat every song in the game on Bass.

For those who think they can do it...here is Visions (not me playing BTW). You can see the need for practice :)

There are good guides already so I won't duplicate their content.

A few things weren't mentioned that helped me get through this:

- First, where to go: The Endless Setlist 2 is under Career in Shanghai (there is only one venue). The requirements for unlocking the ESL2 are you need 900 Stars, you need all the vehicles, roadies, and, possibly, you need to be in the Hall of Fame.

- The minimum level for the ESL2 is Medium so make sure you can beat all the songs on your chosen instrument and have the stamina for your chosen difficulty ( see the other guides for specific tough songs and this thread: http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127191&p... ). This is especially important because you don't want to be playing for 6 hours straight and then fail one of the last few songs.

- I recommend trying it on Expert Bass if you haven't got Platinum Artist yet and are fairly good at Expert guitar/bass. I failed on Visions on my first attempt and only got PA. but, had I succeeded it would have saved me an additional 6h15m.

- I did my second ESL2 on Medium Guitar--to get BoS-- which is fairly boring. So I set some goals like trying to FC every song and, if I missed anything, trying to 5* the song without using star power. This kept my interest (420/420 stars at the end too :) ).

- If you're getting bored, set some challenges for yourself like playing the next song with only two fingers, say your ring finger and pinky (Medium has no 3 button chords).

- Set up a couple of favorite chairs so that you can cycle from standing and sitting in different positions.

- Have some drinks and snacks handy and a bucket or bottle if you don't actually have a BoS :)

- Keep some Advil or other favorite "Painkiller" handy in case you get sore or stiff.

- VERY IMPORTANT: Pressing the Start or Guide button or unplugging your instrument (if it's USB which is recommended since you don't have to worry about batteries) will invalidate BoS. I used cardboard strips to cover the Guide button and a raised cardboard flap to cover the Start button on my wired GH3 controller to protect against accidental presses. I used painter's tape to attach the cardboard. I also found that placing an additional strip of tape on the strum bar increased grip.

This is a guide for Expert Guitar.

Surprisingly, I'm one of the rare few who got this on their first try on the Expert Guitar playthrough, getting only 6 songs (Visions was not one of them, roflmaoooo) under 5-stars. I've been playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band for almost all my life, so maybe that had something to do with it. Whatever. I'll give you the low-down on how to hopefully snag Platinum Artist and Bladder Of Steel at the same time.

WIRED CONTROLLERS - Your wireless Fender is neat and all, but do you really want to get into the second solo of Painkiller only for it to disconnect and invalidate the attempt? Go wired, be safe.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT ACTUALLY HAVING A BLADDER OF STEEL - Guys, you can go six hours without needing to run to the bathroom. Trust me. You'll live. Run to the bathroom without starting.

GET YOUR GEAR - Have a good drink, eat a sandwich. Take a bottle of soda or something so you don't have to run off during the 20-or-so-second break inbetween songs. A snack is optional, but I didn't actually need one. I'm underweight, okay? It feels like a long-ass time to wait while you're sat there, but if a song starts while you're in the kitchen pouring a ice-cold Dr Pepper, you're up shit creek without a paddle. And an achievement.

KNOW WHAT TO PRACTICE - You DON'T need to practice Keep 'Em Seperated or whatever. If you're good at Rock Band, there are only a few parts in the entire setlist you need to practice, and only TWO entire songs. The songs are, rather obviously, Dream Theater's Panic Attack (fantastic song) and, ugh, Abnormality's Visions (fantastic torture device). Here's a few section-specific parts you'll need to practice, too:

The ending solo to Peace Sells. Don't let the fact that everything up until the last 30 seconds of the song is a piece of piss. The first solo is relatively simple to get through, the second solo is a little bit harder, but if you have overdrive, failing is practically impossible. It's only about 52% into the climax that it gets insane. Those sweepers can EASILY drain a full lifebar if you're not prepared.

The ending to Let There Be Rock. Again, a song that only REALLY takes the piss at the bitter end. It culminates in 40 seconds of NON-STOP TREMOLO STRUMMING. Make sure you've got your arm in check when you head into Solo III, because tiring out halfway through is something you do NOT want to happen.

Solo I of Painkiller. I can't imagine how many people have been driven to tears by failing out at this section. After six hours of relentless grinding, you're met with pure PAIN to cap it all off in the final song. See what I did there? Anyway, none of this song is a total cakewalk, but it's not the hardest song in the set, either. But the ENTIRETY of Solo 1 is difficulty incarnate. First, it begins with a fast-but-not-too-fast set of sweepers. Trust me, it gets worse. You go back to the main riff before playing a set long sustain notes. 28% is tricky, but not really TOO hard if you know how to do it. 34% gives you a pair of triplet hammer-ons which leads into a nice sweeper section. THAT then leads into the first TRULY tricky part - 43% to 55% is NOTHING but 16th note HOPOs which go straight into 12th note HOPOs. That throws almost everybody off, transitioning between the two is not easy. That leads into a fairly simple section which leads back into the main riff at about 70%. You'd think that'd be the end of the solo, but nope, 87% to 99% gives you another 16th note HOPO stream. Made it through all that? Well, the hardest part is over, but the rest of the song WILL leach off of the fact that you just exhausted yourself something silly.

So, follow these steps, and you might just make it!

Did this in around 6 hrs and 10 mins.
Like said before, Bass is the easiest way to go for Expert. And If you want to be safe, just worry about passing the song, don’t use overdrive unless you’re failing into the red. I’m not the best player in the world, I don’t think I’ve ever 5 stared Visions on expert Bass in general. But Visions is really the only song to look out for if you’re a decent player like myself and I 4 stared it during the run. Also, I was playing with a RB1 wired guitar because I didn’t want to risk my GHWOR guitar to get damaged from playing nonstop for 6 hours, plus didn’t want to risk the batteries to go out anyway. I 5 stared around 80 of the songs easily with the RB1 guitar, even though it’s obviously not the best guitar, the strum bar isn’t good for fast strumming. I could have 5 stared all songs first try with the GH guitar(aside from Visions). So that being said it’s probably best to play with GH guitar, if you have an extra, the strum bar is better.
Possibly the hardest gaming thing I’ve ever been through lol And it wasn’t because of difficulty, it was the fact that you couldn’t stop playing for 6 hrs lol 84 songs non-stop. You can be the best player in the world, but 6 hours will get to you. I tend to get bored with slow songs and RB2 has a lot of em, so I was falling asleep early-midway in the set lol So I recommend having multiple people taking turns so you don’t lose your mind. But I was wide awake when Battery and Visions came out🤘