Twin Cities rock fans should thank the Republican National Convention.
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."
