Rage Against the Machine Rock The Bells Review 7/28/07

I'm finally posting on my blog, it seems like forever since I have done so, let alone reading anyone else's blog which I apologize for. I just have been very busy this summer and have unfortunately had very little time in which I could actually post. With that said I am going to post my review of the Rage Against the Machine show at Randall's Island on July 28, 2007 which was a part of the Rock the Bells Festival.

I am going to try to keep my personal experiences with this event out of the review because if I did it would just be one large rant, instead I am just going to focus on Rage's performance. For me having the opportunity to see Rage was such an honor, this band has influenced me quite possibly more than any band with maybe the exception of Pink Floyd. The whole reason I am a political science major in college is because of Rage. All the days of dancing around my room in high school to their music have come in hand, now I would be losing my mind to the band in person.

Rage took the stage at around 9:00 with the lights going down and the enormous black flag and red star slowly rising up from the ground behind the stage. The band walked out onto the stage and the crowd went nuts, many of the people there were on there last legs for such a long and hot day but their adrenaline pushed them for Rage. Zack de la Rocha announced to the crowd "We are Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles California" as if they were some unknown band. Like their first performance making a come back at Coachella they opened up with "Testify" and the crowd ate it up jumping around like this was the moment everyone has been waiting for their whole life, and for me, it sort of has been the moment I was waiting for my whole life. The band would go on to play all of their hits like "Bulls on Parade", "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Guerrilla Radio" while throwing in a lot of material from the album "Evil Empire" like "Tire Me", "Down Rodeo", "Vietnow" and "People of the Sun". The fact that they played a lot from "Evil Empire" truly made me happy because that was the one thing I was wishing going into this show, especially "Tire Me" which I have never heard in one of their live performances. Also, the band completely excluded their album "Renegades" from the set.

They continued the show refraining from making too many speeches until their final song of the set "Wake Up" was played. Right before the big finale of the song Zack decided to make a pretty lengthy speech addressing his remarks at Coachella where they said "[The current administration] needs to be tried, hung and shot." He would go on to say that about a month ago the fascists over at Fox News said Rage Against the Machine's made claims that the President should be assassinated. Zack then said that they never said the President should be assassinated, he said they should be tried hung and shot like war criminals. He said that we need to stand up like the Iraqi youth has in regards to this war. The speech was clearly heart felt and passionate and at the conclusion of the speech they kicked into the epic finale of the song where Zack screams "Wake Up" continuously and aggressively.

The band quickly departed the stage and unfortunately the crowd wasn't that loud to cheer for an encore, but justifiably so, because it was such a long day and everyone's energy level was below zero. Even though there wasn't an overwhelming ovation for the band to come back on, they did anyway, and once they came back on the crowd went nuts again. They would then play a stunning rendition of "Freedom" and closed the show with "Killing in the Name" where the crowd would give all they had for the conclusion on the song where everyone screamed at the top of their lungs "F*ck you I won't do what you tell me!".

To say the show was phenomenal would be an understatement, when I thought that David Gilmour would probably own the top spot for my best concert ever, Rage topped it. The energy they displayed on stage was unparalleled to any band I have ever seen. Tom Morello was in great fashion as always and seems to feel more at home with Rage than with Audioslave, his creative talent is utilized far better and even on stage he displays more energy and enthusiasm. The crowd also made it a fantastic experience, it seemed that 90% of the crowd knew every lyric to every song, even the lesser known songs like "Tire Me". All I would have to say is if you are even the slightest fan of Rage Against the Machine than do whatever you possibly can to see them live, sell a kidney if you have to...

The Correct Setlist

1.Testify
2. Bulls On Parade
3. People of the Sun
4. Know Your Enemy
5. Vietnow
6. Bullet in the Head
7. Rodeo
8. Tire Me
9. Radio
10. Calm Like A Bomb
11. Sleep Now In The Fire
12. Wake Up

Encore:
13. Freedom
14 Killing In the Name

My Week In Music: 7/8/07 - 7/14/07

I would really like to post on here more often but I have been finding little time to myself let alone time to blog. It's sort of depressing because I really enjoy my alone time and this summer I've been getting very little of it. This past week I spent going on long trips to visit family, searching for a car to buy, working, and so on and so forth. This week was spent mostly listening to The Smashing Pumpkins newest album "Zeitgeist" which I was meaning to review around a week or two ago but once again have found very little time to blog. Continuing with the Smashing Pumpkins theme of the week I listened to their Greatest Hits catalog quite a bit and continued to repeat both "Perfect" and "Eye" over and over again, in the end "Perfect" would probably be my most listened to song of the week, despite this week not exactly being "perfect."

Most Listened to Album: The Smashing Pumpkins "Zeitgeist"




Most Listened to Song: The Smashing Pumpkins "Perfect"

Musical Meme

I decided to fill out this survey after reading it over at Perplexio's blog which can be seen here Pieces of Perplexio.

Musical survey (we have cookies)

Name 5 of your favorite bands:
(This is in no order after Floyd)
1. Pink Floyd
2. The Beatles
3. Tool
4. King Crimson
5. Bob Dylan

Fav. songs from each
fav song from one: Echoes
fav song from two: A Day In the Life
fav song from three: Eulogy
fav song from four: Epitaph
fav song from five: Masters of War

Randomness about them
Most memorable event with number one (Pink Floyd): Seeing David Gilmour live last year. It was the greatest concert I have ever attended and hearing "Echoes" live brought a tear to my eye.

Most memorable event with number two (The Beatles): I suppose going to the 25th Anniversary of John's death in Strawberry Fields. It was a really fun night packed with a ton of Beatles fans singing and playing guitar. It was a fantastic atmosphere, one that was so stunning that my friend and I were reluctant to leave. When we finally did we ended up being too late to catch the final train home so we ended up sleeping in Penn Station (Train Station) of New York.

Fav line from band four (King Crimson): "Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules."

Why do you like three? (Tool): What is not to like. They are so original, nobody has a sound quite like Tool. Maynard James Kennan's voice is absolutely stunning and so powerful. Danny Carey is a mster on drums. Their music is creative and passionate, they are definitely my favorite band that doesn't fall under the classic rock classification.

Rest...about you!!!!
Why did you take this survey: Like Perplexio, because it was music related
Are you tired?: Very, right now I'm laying in bed with my laptop.
What time is it?: 10:19 PM

Rush Live at the PNC Bank Arts Center 7/08/07 Review

Well this was a pretty packed week for me in terms of music, I was able to get a hold of The Smashing Pumpkins' new album a bit early which means that has been listened to quite a lot despite The Smashing Pumpkins' show of disapproval of the downloading of their music at Live Earth. While on that note, there was also Live Earth which seems to have received more criticism than praise, when looking passed the environmental issue, something which the concert seems to have done, there was actually some pretty impressive performances from bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Bon Jovi, and even the larger than life Spinal Tap. All of that paled in comparison to what was greeting me on Sunday. I went to see Rush at the PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey, but before you read on, I just want to let you know this review is going to be very condensed and brief compared to what they deserve, because to explain a Rush concert in detail is so difficult because of its length and musical technicality.

Being that the show was Rush, I had high expectations, I was expecting a lengthy show, and was crossing my fingers for a lot of my favorite songs to be played. I got one of those and a bit of the other. Rush took the stage at 7:40 and opened up the show with "Limelight", the band sounded great, Geddy's voice was spot on and as normal the musicianship of Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart were fantastic. The band went to play a handful of songs from their newest album, enough to actually take up 1/3 of the entire setlist. While that may sound a little disapointing, the songs performed live gave me a completely different view of the quality of the album, their performance of these songs brought more life to the album which I thought was a decent album but not Rush quality. Also the setlist was really lacking their early material from the 70's with just two songs being performed from that decade: "Circumstances" and "A Passage to Bangkok". Towards the conclusion of the show Neil Peart gave a stellar drum solo which lasted what seemed to be around seven minutes, his talent is completely mind blowing and almost unfathomable. The band threw in some classic favorites into the setlist, namely "Tom Sawyer", "The Spirit of the Radio", "YYZ", "Freewill" and "Limelight". The band threw in a lot of video sequences throughout the show with band members acting in several of them, and my personal favorite was the intro to "Tom Sawyer" was a South Park introduction, one which must have been specifically made for the band, because being an avid South Park fan I know that wasn't in any of their episodes and upon further research I learned that Neil is actually good friends with the South Park creators.

The show ended at about 11:00, which means the show spanned a solid three hours and twenty minutes, but only three hours of actual playing time considering they had around a twenty minute intermission, but perhaps the word "only" shouldn't have been used in that sentence because three hours is one hell of a long show. These guys certainly aren't young, but their energy and talent has not diminished. One really has to give this band credit for their ability to go on night after night putting on such an epic show for such a long period of time. As I said before, to review this show in detail would be nearly impossible, my only recommendation is seeing it for yourself.

Setlist:

01. Limelight
02. Digital Man
03. Entre Nous
04. Mission
05. Freewill
06. The Main Monkey Business
07. The Larger Bowl
08. Secret Touch
09. Circumstances
10. Between The Wheels
11. Dreamline

Intermission

Set 2:

Video Intro

12. Far Cry
13. Workin' Them Angels
14. Armor And Sword
15. Spindrift
16. The Way The Wind Blows
17. Subdivisions
18. Natural Science
19. Witch Hunt
20. MalNar
21. Drum Solo
22. Hope
23. Summertime Blues
24. The Spirit Of Radio
25. Tom Sawyer

Encore:

26. One Little Victory
27. A Passage to Bangkok
28. YYZ

The Problem With Live Earth

I had quite a few issues with Live Earth and none of them really stem from it being "hypocritical" according to some artists. Live Earth had the potential to be something amazing, something that could have really delivered the message of an ever growing environmental crisis, unfortunately it fell short due to a lack of positive direction.

When trying to figure out how we as people can improve the environment it isn't done by donating money to green companies or for that matter, anything to do with spending money. Yet, ticket prices for the New Jersey concert were absurdly high, so high they exceeded the $300 mark and the affects of the high prices were seen in the turnout at the floor level of the stadium. It was pathetic, this morning when looking to see if I could still buy tickets I was able to score two twelfth row center stage seats, of course I didn't actually spend that money but I was seeing out of curiosity.

What should have happened was, one, the US show should have been general admission for the floor, because if you are going to charge money for this show than you should at least make a move towards making them cheaper and having a GA floor would mean that more people could be crammed in and ticket prices could be reduced. Secondly, the show should have been free, just like Live 8 which was a show which was about collecting money for poverty.

As I stated earlier, saving the environment isn't done by spending money or donating money to any environmental groups. It is done by simply making simple changes to ones life style. By driving less, by not asking for a receipt every time you visit the ATM, it is done by shutting down your computer ever night. The purpose of these shows should have solely rested in raising awareness, not collecting money.

Despite the focus being a little misguided in my opinion, I was very impressed with many of the performances, namely the Smashing Pumpkins and Bon Jovi. Naturally Bon Jovi will put a great show on in front of his home New Jersey crowd, but having never seen him I was presently surprised considering I am not a big fan. The Smashing Pumpkins however, were a band I was anticipating heavily and they delivered. Playing two songs from the new album and two classic songs, they sounded as if they haven't missed a beat, and in reality they lost their full lineup. What I found interesting was the D'arcy Wretzky's position at bass was taken by another girl who did actually look like her a bit.

In the end I felt the broadcast on Bravo was excellent but Live Earth had the potential of being a bit improved. Al Gore should have followed the Live 8 formula, free tickets and making it a point to get the word out about the issue through the show.