Review: Rage Against the Machine at the Democrat Convention
August 29, 2008
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The music event that was characterized as having the largest potential this week for violence between activists and police went off Wednesday more like a mass training in peaceful resistance.
Joined by like-minded anti-war rockers State Radio, The Coup, Flobots, Jello Biafra and Wayne Kramer from the MC5, Rage Against the Machine headlined an impassioned midday concert at the Denver Coliseum featuring the band’s hits, political speeches and calls for nonviolence.
More than anything, the concert was a respectful nod to Iraq Veterans Against the War, which, along with Tent State, mounted the show to call attention to their agenda: Encouraging a hasty end to the war, providing veterans with comprehensive healthcare, and rebuilding Iraq.
After the headliners capped off a loud, amped up performance with the fan favorite “Killin in the name,” Rage guitarist Tom Morello called on the roughly 8,000 concertgoers to join him and other entertainers in a march for peace to the Pepsi Center.
“We’re going right now,” he said. “We’ll meet you outside.”
Non-violence was the theme of the day.
Earlier on stage, Vietnam War veteran and author of “Born on the Fourth of July,” Ron Kovick, said this was a historic day in Denver.
“We will bring the troops home,” he said, “and we will do this nonviolently, in the spirit of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.”
Biafra, a Colorado native and punk legend for fronting the Dead Kennedys, reminded the crowd that there “is such a thing as a police riot,” he said. “Don’t give them any reason” to start one.
Before the concert, Boots Riley, frontman for the political hip-hop/funk band The Coup, said the event was a way of questioning Democrats’ on their Iraq plan. “What they’re talking about is going to take years,” he said. “Meanwhile people are dying.”
Kramer’s band, the MC5, performed during the explosive 1968 Democratic National Convention. He said this day in Denver had “poetic and historic significance” for him.
“Just the fact that I’m here 40 years later is a treat for me,” Kramer said.
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_10318511
Were you of thousands who saw this latest tour from Linkin Park? Review posted
August 29, 2008
With 50 million albums sold worldwide, there shouldn’t be any doubts as to why Linkin Park is the biggest band of the decade.
When they took the stage at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View on Aug. 9 in front of over 20,000 people, they proved exactly why thousands of screaming fans ranging from 13-year-old teenyboppers decked out in Linkin Park gear to 50-year-old metalheads keep showing up to their shows, especially on this year’s Projekt Revolution Tour.
After almost an entire day of terrible to mediocre music that plagued the Revolution stage of this year’s festival, it was solely up to Linkin Park to make up for the bad choice of opening bands such as Hawthorne Heights, 10 Years and Armor for Sleep.
As headliners of the tour, they had to prove themselves as a worthy headlining act over legendary grunge icon Chris Cornell, who served as the frontman for Soundgarden and Audioslave respectively. On this tour, however, Cornell’s job was simple. He was to warm up the crowd and get them pumped up for Linkin Park.
Shortly after Cornell’s set, as the lights dimmed, the entire seating level of the amphitheatre got on their feet and erupted in cheers eagerly awaiting the arrival of the six-piece Grammy winning band from Southern California.
As the last North American tour supporting their latest album Minutes to Midnight, their 19-song set comprised mostly of songs off that album, which sees Chester Bennington taking on a larger vocal role than band emcee Mike Shinoda, which in turn allows Shinoda to focus more on other instruments, such as guitar and keyboards during the show.
Before the band took the stage, the fans were greeted with a pounding climatic intro from percussion group Street Drum Corps, which led right into Linkin Park’s opening song, their breakout hit “One Step Closer,” which on previous tours, was used as a staple closer to their live shows.
Although it was a bit odd hearing “One Step Closer” so early in the set, it is enough to get fans energized for the set that was about to dominate their lives for the next 90 minutes.
They then launched into an old classic off their sophomore album Meteora with “Lying From You,” which got huge pop from the crowd with its angst-driven lyrics and monstrous screams from Bennington.
http://media.www.theskylineview.com/media/storage/paper619/news/2008/08/28/Entertainment/Thousands.Of.Fans.Join.The.Revolution-3406725.shtml
Review of the latest Motley Crue Crue Fest tour
August 29, 2008
One thing that was pretty amazing at Cruefest, was how fast they tore down and set up the stage for the next band. If you were late getting to Cruefest, chances are you missed Trapt, and Sixx A.M. Luckily, I was there right at 5 for Cruefest, and I didn’t miss a minute of the action.
Sixx A.M. took the stage, and myself by surprise. I have listened to the Heroin Diaries several times since its release, so I am pretty familiar with all of the songs, but I have never seen singer James Michael, or guitarist DJ Ashba live.
Sixx A.M. didn’t have the longest set, but the played all of the popular songs off The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack including, “Tomorrow”, “Accidents Can Happen”, “Pray For Me”, and closed out their set with “Life Is Beautiful”. I knew they would be good, but I didn’t expect to like them as much as I did. Sixx A.M. was excellent live, so good in fact that Nikki Sixx may have to do a second album with this group.
Nikki Sixx is obviously the star in this band. At no point did he try to upstage Michael or Ashba, in fact, I thought for Sixx A.M. being a side project that they appeared to have pretty good chemistry as a band. I would definitely pay to see these guys again! Sixx A.M. was certainly a highlight in Cruefest.
The following clip is Sixx A.M. performing “Life is Beautiful“. Enjoy!
http://hardrockhideout.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/cruefest-2008-sixx-am/
Another review of Rage Aainst the Machine the Democratic Convention
August 29, 2008
DENVER — A month after whipping the crowd at Lollapalooza into a near-riotous frenzy, a strange thing happened during the Rage Against the Machine protest show on Wednesday (August 27) in support of Iraq Veterans Against the War: Things were downright … peaceful. And, as of 7 p.m. Mountain Time, they stayed that way as several thousand protesters gathered in the shadow of the Pepsi Center, where President Bill Clinton was about to address the Democratic National Convention.
After a more than 2-mile march across Denver that at one point included a police-estimated 4,500-6,000 people, a crowd of several thousand anxiously awaited word from the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, to whom they had submitted a list of demands that included an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and reparations for the Iraqi people.
With more than 700 police in full riot gear looking on, the protesters defiantly refused to enter the designated 50,000-square-foot protest zone, dubbed the “Freedom Cage,” saying that as veterans, they deserved more from their country.
With chants of “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “We believe in freedom and will not rest, will not rest until it comes,” the marchers were led by a phalanx of soldiers from Iraq Veterans Against the War and a front line that included Rage’s Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello, as well as the Coup’s Boots Riley. They amassed outside the Freedom Cage and let out a whoop as word came down around 6:30 p.m. Mountain Time that the Obama camp had agreed to enter into negotiations with the group.
Hours earlier, Tent State University leader Adam Jung vowed from the stage of the Coliseum that the marchers would make the Democrats “sh– their pants” as the mile-long protest snaked through town.
Before taking off, Rage played an hour’s worth of incendiary, bomb-throwing anthems from their catalog, and lead singer De la Rocha egged on the near-capacity crowd at the Denver Coliseum into a froth, but several hours’ worth of warnings from the concert’s organizers to keep the post-show protest nonconfrontational appeared to soak in as fans mostly danced in place with their fists in the air, spinning out the occasional mosh pit.
Among those helping to spread the message of peaceful resistance at the show — which also included sets from the Coup and Denver natives the Flobots — was Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, whose story was the basis for the Tom Cruise movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” His fist raised in the air, the wheelchair—bound Kovic told the crowd that “the whole world is watching.”
Rage said little during their set, playing hits such as “Testify,” “Bulls on Parade” and “Killing in the Name.” With assistance from former MC5 guitarist and 1968 Democratic National Convention protest veteran Wayne Kramer — decked out in all white and sporting a guitar painted with an American flag — Rage ripped through a punk-edged take on the MC5’s scorched-earth manifesto “Kick Out the Jams.”
De la Rocha kept the polemics to a minimum during the show but gave a stern warning that “revolutionary change begins with a crime of betrayal,” and said that any politician who continues to support the United States’ current policies “is in harm’s way.”
A short time later, voluntary parade marshal Wesley Flowers, 31, put on his helmet and brightly colored vest and began the long march to the Pepsi Center, keeping the marchers in line while warily eyeing the hundreds of police on bicycle and on foot shadowing the march from across the street. “I’m wearing a flak jacket because I’m allergic to tasers,” he said, showing off his body armor and explaining that with his heart murmur, a blast of the taser could cause him to go into cardiac arrest. Flowers, an advocate for the homeless, said he hitchhiked eight days from Portland, Oregon, to take part in the protest and hoped that the Obama campaign — which he had written a letter to three weeks prior — would listen to the veterans’ demands when they made their way to the Pepsi Center.
An hour before the marchers arrived, hundreds of police began massing and forming long, foreboding lines, in order to funnel the march toward the protest zone and away from the delegate entrance to the Pepsi Center. Checking their mace canisters, dropping their face shields, standing at attention with their five-foot batons at the ready and strapping on leg armor, the squadrons of storm trooper-like officers marched into the fray with orders to be prepared for potential violent action.
The protesters marched past the gathering delegates and into a long concrete and barbed-wire corridor, stopping several times to coordinate actions with police, remaining orderly and respectful along the way. In another bit of Big Brother irony, the procession was led by a police officer in a heavily armored golf cart with a digital message board on it that flashed the instructions, “Welcome to Denver … Follow us.”
Nearly three hours into the protest, frustration began to ripple through the crowd as it stalled out just outside the desolate Freedom Cage, with some marchers sitting down to play dice, start impromptu dance circles, smoke marijuana and, eventually, wander away until police estimated that just a few thousand remained.
Then, a buzz rippled through the mass as the word was passed on from the front that something was happening. “We are entering negotiations with Senator Obama,” one of the march’s Iraq-vet leaders announced. “The Democratic Party is scared sh–less of us right now!”
A spokesperson for IVAW could not be reached for comment on the negotiations at press time, but judging by the roar of approval from inside the convention center for President Clinton’s speech a short time later — which likely could not be heard by the far-flung protesters — fear was likely not the on the minds of party supporters as they finally got the healing message between the Clinton and Obama camps they’d been looking for all week.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1593671/20080827/rage_against_the_machine.jhtml
Review: Rage Against the Machine at the Democratic Convention
August 29, 2008
The music event that was characterized as having the largest potential this week for violence between activists and police went off Wednesday more like a mass training in peaceful resistance.
Joined by like-minded anti-war rockers State Radio, The Coup, Flobots, Jello Biafra and Wayne Kramer from the MC5, Rage Against the Machine headlined an impassioned midday concert at the Denver Coliseum featuring the band’s hits, political speeches and calls for nonviolence.
More than anything, the concert was a respectful nod to Iraq Veterans Against the War, which, along with Tent State, mounted the show to call attention to their agenda: Encouraging a hasty end to the war, providing veterans with comprehensive healthcare, and rebuilding Iraq.
After the headliners capped off a loud, amped up performance with the fan favorite “Killin in the name,” Rage guitarist Tom Morello called on the roughly 8,000 concertgoers to join him and other entertainers in a march for peace to the Pepsi Center.
“We’re going right now,” he said. “We’ll meet you outside.”
Non-violence was the theme of the day.
Earlier on stage, Vietnam War veteran and author of “Born on the Fourth of July,” Ron Kovick, said this was a historic day in Denver.
“We will bring the troops home,” he said, “and we will do this nonviolently, in the spirit of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.”
Biafra, a Colorado native and punk legend for fronting the Dead Kennedys, reminded the crowd that there “is such a thing as a police riot,” he said. “Don’t give them any reason” to start one.
Before the concert, Boots Riley, frontman for the political hip-hop/funk band The Coup, said the event was a way of questioning Democrats’ on their Iraq plan. “What they’re talking about is going to take years,” he said. “Meanwhile people are dying.”
Kramer’s band, the MC5, performed during the explosive 1968 Democratic National Convention. He said this day in Denver had “poetic and historic significance” for him.
“Just the fact that I’m here 40 years later is a treat for me,” Kramer said.
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_10318511
