Awesome Games Done Quick is an annual early-year speedrun event held live in Pennysylvania, USA, where the best players and contestants compete for the best speedrun times for games old and new while sending the proceeds earned to numerous charities. Throughout the years, AGDQ has a few standout speedrun moments and livestreams like the 4-player simultaneously speedrunning Mega Man X to the Granny horror game speedrun in 2024.

2025’s AGDQ event’s last day featured a speedrun of Crazy Taxi that featured one standout element: a live band playing the game’s soundtrack. For context, the 2000 Dreamcast port of Crazy Taxi retained all the licensed music of the game featuring The Offspring. If you upload a playthrough of that version of Crazy Taxi on YouTube or Twitch, there’s a very good chance your gameplay will be copyright claimed or, worse, taken down via DMCA requests. Having a live band play covers of all the songs from the game while the speedrun is going on can certainly bypass that issue.

Then again, the main reason is clearly for spectacle and doing something out-of-the-norm for these live speedrun events. Speedrunner chuckles825 played his heart out through Crazy Taxi’s Crazy Box mode and its 16 levels (and using the driver and vehicle based on which one got the highest bid), while the band -consisting of guitarist 2dos, lead vocals Metallama, drummer The Sound Defense, and bassist SquidDilla- play on cue to what’s on screen. This means that the band starts playing when chuckles825 is in a stage and will stop after he’s completed it, while getting ready to play the next stage’s theme.

Not only was this fun to watch online (as well as funny since the band is at the mercy of the speedrun progress), but the crowd behind the band were rocking out to covers of The Offspring’s “All I Want”, clearly having the time of their lives. This is definitely a step up beyond the norm where these speedrun livestreams come with educational commentary on the glitches and tactics for the game in question. Personally, I’m more than fine with this creative copyright bypass method. Check out the full speedrun session below.

On a related note, check out the other AGDQ 2025 highlights below, including an Elden Ring speedrun on saxophone and a Kaizo Mario World 3 playthrough.