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TechnoratiPolitics played a role, but Wednesday's nearly sold-out Rage Against the Machine concert was still unquestionably powerful.
Twin Cities rock fans should thank the Republican National Convention.
![[Rage Against the Machine came out wearing Guantanamo Bay hoods. This is lead singer Zack de la Rocha. (Joey Mcleister, Star Tribune)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/rage.jpg "rage.jpg")
Eleven years after its last local show -- and eight since going on a hiatus from which it has only partially returned -- radical rap/metal band Rage Against the Machine finally came back to town Wednesday to mess with the RNC. Whatever it accomplished on the political front, the Los Angeles quartet set off an atom bomb in what has mostly been a fizzling year for big concerts.
Come to think of it, Wednesday's nearly sold-out Target Center show in Minneapolis could well go down as the local hard-rock show of the decade. You could have forgotten all about the, um, elephants in the room, and that assessment would still hold up.
Rage put on an incomparable 90-minute show, filled with brick-punching intensity, an innovative melding of once-disparate working-class music genres and bold lyrics that could even get a nun mad about something. Many of the 13,000 attendees did more damage to one another in the mosh pits on the arena floor than they could have out on the streets.
But even for the fans "only [there] to get down," as singer Zack de la Rocha put it, it was hard to miss the RNC connection. Not a single person arrived to the concert Wednesday without passing a line of police in riot gear. You can imagine the impact that added to lyrics like, "The war is right outside the door," which De la Rocha emphasized during the second song, "Testify."
The band's four members sent a message even before the vocalist opened his mouth. They were ushered onstage wearing orange Guantanamo Bay-like prisoner suits and proceeded to tear through the opening song, "Bombtrack," with black hoods over their heads. Watch out, Slipknot!
Most of the attacking from then on out really was just musical, not sermonic (and it's perhaps worth noting that most of the music was written during the Clinton administration).
While he held his instrument tightly to his chest as if it were monitoring his heartbeat, guitarist Tom Morello kicked the stage floor in unison to the thundering beats of drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford -- none of whom lost his edge during his time in the more mild-mannered rock band Audioslave. Morello's screeching, turntable-inspired solos and riotous riffs genuinely came off wizard-like in songs such as "Bulls on Parade" and "Born of a Broken Man."
Ultimately, though, it was De la Rocha -- mostly missing in action since Rage's split -- who came back strongest. He owned the stage. His MC-ing in "Bullet in the Head" and "Freedom" was panther-like. One of the most stirring moments came as he quietly but passionately delivered the climax of "Guerrilla Radio" ("It has to start somewhere/It has to start sometime/What better place than here/What better time than now").
De la Rocha did not break to make a speech until the last song before the encore, "Wake Up," when he urged fans to "interrupt and disrupt the destruction that this party has brought to the world." As the encore ended with the crowd screaming, "[Expletive] you I won't do what you tell me!" (the final refrain of "Killing in the Name"), the singer tempered the anger with pleas to "protest peacefully."
Accounts vary about post-concert rioting. Police reportedly arrested about 70 protesters, but those mostly came more than an hour after the show. Whether the trouble was sparked by the Rage show (or was just more protesting, or was just bar-hopping drunkenness heightened by the heavy police presence), don't let it be a black eye on the concert.
This was one for the books, and not about the bookings.
24 Comments so far
Show All"...even bands like Black Sabbath assumed peace and love were desirable ends."
And so many people either don't know or forget that heavy metal music has its roots in dissent. Had Birmingham, England been Happy Valley, heavy metal would have never been born. As a metal fan of over two decades, I am eternally grateful for that.
Actually, our elite control the Music Industry and much of our culture. The Tavistock Institute is a psyops division of British Intelligence that gave us the music of the 60's (and the drugs) to modify the mood of the poeple and provoke rebellion and revolutionary mood. Thats why so many of the bands came from Britian, they all got the music of the cult of Dionysus and the Baal priesthood from Theo Adorno, a Marxist Frankfurt School musicologist.
Tavistock Institute then set up shop in the US under various names and then came disco to lull everyone back to sleep. I stopped listening to music once rap and hip hop can around in the 90's and it was obvious they were just destroying the ability to think at that point. It obviously worked.
SABAT - I know who CRASS are/were. But I think RATM deserve some credit... there are some late 20 somethings out there who are politically aware for having listened to this band as a teenager.
Grappa
It's kind of funny reading some of the epaulets, being an old hippie from the 60's, but what came to mind about right wingers not understanding the message was it always has been ,they just conform to what ever is popular, or as we used to say "hip" at the moment. Right wingers just need to go hungry for awhile and watch how fast they conform to anew set of principles.
I have one thing 2 things to say, from someone involved in the real (non corporate or for profit) punk scene for years, and that is CRASS and CONFLICT. I repeat, CRASS and CONFLICT. The most influential punk bands of all time, (and please! dont let me hear anyone try and argue that RATM have ANYTHING to do with punk rock) Completely, and utterly political and unapologetically ANARCHIST. Not, Sex Pistols "i am an anarchist" crap...more like Barcelona 1936. Durrutti column stuff. Oh, and the reason that so many right wingers have used our symbolism is that it is effective, not that its ambiguous. After all, never expect a Fascist to use his imagination....he has none.
Oh, and by the way, RATM using our dissent as a way to make a buck is utterly pathetic. When a writer for the ST-P trib can write an article like this (fawning and comfortable) to write about a supposedly rebellious band, something is terribly amiss. Then again, theres a reason us punks have no respect for bands that tour and stay at the Ritz. Really effing punk. CRASS--"FEEDING OF THE 5000" CONFLICT--"Increase the Pressure"...Get those 2 albums and tell me our politics are ambiguous!
i would add the stranglers and dead kennedys (suggesting the genre stretches time and space and has different common themes like any 'movement')
"Chickenshit Conformist"
Punk's not dead
It just deserves to die
When it becomes another stale cartoon
A close-minded, self-centered social club
Ideas don't matter, it's who you know
If the music's gotten boring
It's because of the people
Who want everyone to sound the same
Who drive bright people out
Of our so-called scene
'Til all that's left Is just a meaningless fad
Hardcore formulas are dogshit
Change and caring are what's real
Is this a state of mind
Or just another label
The joy and hope of an alternative
Have become its own cliche
A hairstyle's not a lifestyle
Imagine Sid Vicious at 35
Who needs a scene
Scared to love and to feel
Judging everythng
By loud fast rules appeal
Who played last night?
"I don't know, I forgot.
But diving off the stage Was a lot of fun."
[Chorus:]
So eager to please
Peer pressure decrees
So eager to please
Peer pressure decrees
Make the same old mistakes
Again and again,
Chickenshit conformist
Like your parents
What's ripped us apart even more than drugs
Are the thieves and the goddamn liars
Flipping people off when they share their stuff
When someone falls are there any friends?
Harder core than thou for a year or two
Then it's time to get a real job
Others stay home, it's no fun to go out
When the gigs are wrecked by gangs and thugs
When the thugs form bands, look who gets record deals
From New York metal labels looking to scam
Who sign the most racist queerbashing bands they can find
To make a buck revving kids up for war
Walk tall, act small
Only as tough as gang approval
Unity is bullshit
When it's under someone's fat boot
Where's the common cause
Too many factions
Safely sulk in their shells
Agree with us on everything
Or we won't help with anythng
That kind of attitude
Just makes a split grow wider
Guess who's laughing while the world explodes
When we're all crybabies
Who fight best among ouselves
[Chorus]
That farty old rock and roll attitude's back
"It's competition, man, we wanna break big."
Who needs friends when the money's good
That's right, the '70s are back.
Cock-rock metal's like a bad laxative
It just don't move me, ya know?
The music's OK when there's more ideas than solos
Do we rally need the attitude too?
Shedding thin skin too quickly
As a fan it disappoints me
Same old stupid sexist lyrics
Or is Satan all you can think of?
Crossover is just another word
For lack of ideas
Maybe what we need
Are more trolls under the bridge
Will the metalheads finally learn something-
Or will the punks throw away their education?
No one's ever the best
Once they believe their own press
"Maturing" don't mean rehashing
Mistakes of the past
[Chorus]
The more things change
The more they stay the same
We can't grow
When we won't criticize ourselves
The '60s weren't all failure
It's the '70s that stunk
As the clock ticks we dig the same hole
Music scenes ain't real life
They won't get rid of the bomb
Won't eliminate rape
Or bring down the banks
Any kind of real change
Takes more time and work
Than changing channels on a TV set
-- dead kennedys - bed time for democracy 1986 ...
...peace..
It's all very well and good that you're turned on by the music of Crass and Conflict, Sabat. And I'm happy you've found a community to be a part of.
For my part, having been a teen in the early 80s and discovering the original Punk music of that time, I just remember having so much f@cking fun. Slam dancing (we still called it that then--the term "mosh" came later) in the pit all night to X, the Ramones, the Buttholes, etc, etc, etc until we were a seething mass of sweat balls with the most incredible shit-eating grins on our faces. That we were having this much fun while the rest of our contemporaries were paying top dollar for upper deck seats in an arena so they could hold up their lighters for dickweeds like Phil Collins or Journey, well, it just felt like we were getting away with something.
By the early 90s i was already getting a little long in the tooth, but I was still seeing shows, and still enthusiastic, but things were already changing, or changed... Maybe it was the whole "straight edge" thing that came along with Minor Threat and Fugazi. I don't know. I mean, I LOVED Fugazi (still do). Saw 'em at least a half dozen times. But suddenly I realized it was all SO serious. It was like you had to have your little punk rock union card or something, not that i really gave a shit. It got so factionalized.
So pardon me for saying so, but your post strikes me that way. Like maybe you're taking it all just a bit too seriously. Maybe I'm just another sold out "BOF" (boring old f@cker) now in my dottering middle age, so I guess my criticism can be easily swept aside. But i really was there when it was new and still undefined. When all options were still on the table and the only limits were how much gumption, attitude, and creativity a band brought to the stage. And you know? Those really WERE the days. You shoulda been there...
I'm sure some of the habituates of this site would be surprised to know that RATM guitarist Tom Morello was once an aide to former California senator Alan Cranston. Their seminal first album was written during the reign of the Bush 1, while their two other works were produced during the Clinton years. They have been sorely missed during the majority of the Dubya, Cheney, & Co. misadventure to the point that the most well-known bit of anti-Bush music is Green Day's "American Idiot." Hopefully, they are back for real.
Conservatives/Liberals the terms are outmoded. Governors are less interested in the governed than they are about Re-election. Would *"Native Criminal Class", be a better Descriptor? *Gore Vidal
I am a fan of music.
Even if RATM were playing a show at a Dairy Queen their music would invite an analysis of why the American Dream wasn't able to help the fast-food industry.
The RATM discussion seems to fit a scenario where the person listening to the music is asking these questions.
I leave the question of "WHY?", to the reader to answer for this Article.
Speaking for myself, I can understand why the response from a group of musicians that seem to ask personal questions about the role of authority (a favorite Punk Music theme), would generate such a response from the Political Convention scene of the "...worst president in history, ever", (from Bill Moyers).
I don't want to encourage readers or music listeners to disrupt the authority of the Republicans to conduct a Political Convention but if the questions of the music listeners at the show described, led them to think about these questions I can understand the response.
Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell, author of the Award winning series "The Power of Myth" about the power of religion on the world and in his interview (available on PBS), he asked "Why is it that the persons who act like the priests of our society are always the Artists", The answer by Joseph Campbell describes the type of groups that the members of RATM would fit into.
He said in reply that (Source needed) the priest's always are concerned with the needs and the desires of people in our society. They are always connected to the person on the street, that's part of their job. They must be able to understand what the people are talking about and what they want.
That's not a direct quote and I wish I could find the reference quickly for this discussion here.
If I have mis-stated the ref that I attributed to Joseph Campbell please correct me.
The reference is important enough to not be misunderstood by myself or anyone else.
Thanks, hman
The author finds it noteworthy that most of the music was written during the Clinton administration but doesn't say why. One might assume from this that the band isn't anti-McCain or even they're anti-Democrat.
My take is that their lyrics are an indictment of the entire corrupt US political system and the uses to which it is put, irrespective of any party in power.
Capitalist phallic logos on the sides of arenas is a monstrous rape job on the human spirit of assembly and celebration.
TEAR DOWN THE LOGO!!
TEAR DOWN THE LOGO!!
TEAR DOWN THE LOGO!!
delete
Rage won't sell out.
I was just listening to Rage's EVIL EMPIRE album yesterday.. so many words of De la Rochas hit spot on.
"Is all the world Jails and Churches?"
but hey I just read that Toby Keith is supporting Obama!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/toby-keith-praises-obama_n_1199...
Man, now I've got all these songs stuck in my head. Thanks Common Dreams....
But yeah, I often wonder how many of the people at this show get the politics. I say this, because I had one friend whose all time favorite band was Rage, but he was a "Republican." But then, he also was a fan of Che, so I think this kid was just confused.
Anywho, I have this other friend that is obsessed with punk bands like Bad Religion, Anti-flag, and the like... and yet he's in the reserves, is ardently pro-war, and never breaks from his steady diet of Rush and the like.
Anyone have insights on how this is possible? I mean, I can't see myself listening to Toby Keith.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -Epicurus
On your Republican friend who was also a Che fan, a lot of Americans only pay attention to the image or impression of a thing and remain unaware of its substance, often deliberately. Che's daughter, Aleida, has said that she has been shocked to find right-wingers in Europe adopting Che's image and asking her for autographs, apparently not knowing that Che opposed everything they stand for. To the right-wingers, though, he's just a generic symbol of aggressive rebellion.
And a lot of American right-wingers, like the friends you mention, only hear the aggression in music like punk and RATM. They completely ignore the lyrics, or they twist the lyrics around in their minds to mean whatever they want them to mean (I know of a self-proclaimed "conservative" punk who claims The Sex Pistols' lyrics prove they were anti-abortion). Americans think everyone just wants to be famous and rich anyway, and they tend to believe that lyrics are written only to convey an image that will appeal to people - hence the popularity of senseless but catchy songs. But the appeal to right-wingers of aggressive-sounding music is strong; right-wingers are characterized by bellicosity, after all. RATM's music has even been used by right-wingers like your friend in the military to accompany and inspire torture sessions and bombing raids. If I were RATM, I would be speaking out against right-wing fans and military use of their music at every opportunity, ticket sales be damned.
There have been plenty of right-wing punk bands, by the way: Fear, The 4Skins, and many more. One of the things I always found objectionable about punk since its 70s inception was that it was ambiguous/ambivalent about its political direction. It apparently had no political direction, really. The rock music of the 60s and 70s that punks were saying they were rebelling against was clearly progressive; even bands like Black Sabbath assumed peace and love were desirable ends. Punks, on the other hand, really just wanted to shock, and some clearly had right-wing tendencies: Siouxsie Sioux and Joy Division flirting with Nazi symbols, Killing Joke saying they welcomed nuclear war (though they were progressive overall), etc. With its aggressive sound, largely white look, and unclear direction, punk could be easily adopted by right-wingers as their own.
Joy Division wasn't about politics at all. They were about art, vision, and the dark dreams of a totalitarian world. Sure they had references to the 3rd Reich in their music (their name itself was taken from the area in the death camps Nazi officers kept young, attractive Jewish women for their personal pleasure/abuse), but this was in no way a glorification of nazism. Their music was a harrowing, unflinching audio journey into the darkest, most perverse reaches of the human psyche. It did (and still does) what all great art does; it held up a mirror to parts of our world or ourselves that may not always be pretty to look at, but are nonetheless very real.
As to why a right=winger would like it?... I don't know, actually. It tends to appeal to peolple who abhor totalitarian systems, when these people have any politics at all. Many punkers don't. They just appreciate great music when they hear it. Nothing wrong with that...In fact, that was me. I was there. And back then I couldn't have really given 2 shits about politics.
Punks were never about politics, despite the Sex Pistol's ground-breaking "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen". I agree with you that punk was a rebellion against the-then current music, especially disco, and it offered little else. Maybe some saw it as a statement against the political status quo, but that was never a primary reason for its existence.
Punks adopted fashions of the Skinheads, a neo-nazi movement that was virulently xenophobic.
@drift and Revenge Girl
Thanks for the corrections. You are correct, I did not do much research. My apologies for misrepresenting the movement. :(
2 more corrections on your post, WTF:
First of all, the original skinhead sub-culture in England in the early 70s was completely absent of racism. In fact, the (black) Jamacian rude boys were one of their primary influences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead
It was later in the early 80s that ultra right-wing nationalists coopted their style and injected racism into their factions. The recent movie "This Is England" (Highly recommended) documents this period. Some skins even today remain true to their original roots, and the color of their respective shoe laces is sometimes an indicator of their factions: ie, racist skins have white shoe laces, commie left-wing ones have red.
Secondly, Punk was most decidedly NOT a reaction to disco. It was a reaction to the bloated, self important beast of corporate rock itself; of what it had become by the mid 70s with schlock like Yes, ELP, REO and the like dominating the airwaves; of how very far away it was from it's youthful exhuberence and rebelliousness exemplified in the 50s rockers. As Johnny Rotten himself said at the time about the Sex Pistols: "We're just a dance band that wants to destroy the world." One of the most famous T-shirts Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood used to sell out of their bondage boutique "Sex," where the Pistols formed, was one that read "I HATE PINK FLOYD." And as soon as the Pistols disbanded after their US tour in 78, Rotten, now Lydon, formed Public Image Ltd. (PIL), whose 2nd record, "Metal Box", a sonic masterpiece, drew heavily from disco influences.
Punks WERE about politics when they were Political!
Punks also adopted the fashions of drag queens, bikers, circus oddities and street urchins. The overwhelming nihilism of Punk (which includes art as well as music)included lots of people with different perspectives - kind of like humans in general. Saying that Punk was all about a rebellion against disco is making a whole youth movement that has survived for 35 years into a mere response to one bad era of corporate schlock! Your statement is not based on much research.
Yeah I can see how people just get the aggression, but don't understand it's actually directed at everything they believe. After all, they obviously have trouble interpreting where people stand on issues if they are conservative in the first place.
I still boggles my mind though... as a poet, the lyrics of a song have always been tremendously important to me and I spend so much time digging into their meaning.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -Epicurus
I'm sure the same thing was true for Bob Dylan and Joan Byez. Lots of kids listened just to be cool and get laid. they never bothered to LISTEN to the songs...
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams
-- Rage aginst the Machine.
In America if you want to find the truth you look to our artists. If you want the lies you look to our media.
Hoa binh