Final month of Summer – It’s been a strange one if only an extension of an even stranger year.
We spent it with some legendary bands – Black Sabbath finishing up after almost 50 years, Kraftwerk in 3-D with no signs of slowing down after 40 years & Faster Pussycat celebrates 30 years as a band in the only way they know how.
A new band made up of legends, Prophets of Rage hit the streets to Make America Rage Again.
Black Sabbath – September 7th – Gexa Energy Pavillion – Dallas, TX
After nearly 50 years, Black Sabbath took the stage for the final time in Dallas on Wednesday night. Since their inception, the English quartet has had a mythic quality to it, as though there’s a plausible deniability of the band’s mortality. And as Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne began the show, the finality of it all never quite felt tangible. Notably absent was founding member and drummer Bill Ward, a fact Jimmy Clufetos would sooner have you forget. Even the most ardent of fans knew that this was as good as they were ever going to have it. Sabbath wasted no time in their final attempt to melt the faces of their eager and willing audience. They burned and raged through their setlist like a well-oiled machine. Leading off this final act of revelry was the titular Black Sabbath The crowd responded with the loyal fervor of an army commanded by four seasoned generals on the eve of a great battle. But that was really just as the appetizer. Sirens blared among the crowd, with the early refrains of War Pigs hung heavy in the air, as iconic a takedown of war hawks as any.
Regardless of their politics, every member of the audience, young and old, came prepared to scream every line back at an eerily giddy Osbourne. It was almost as if he was finally realizing the scope and significance of the song for the first time, with the resounding chorus of voices in the audience echoing his every word back to him. As the song drew to a close, Osbourne smiled the smile of a man who was only just beginning.
The setup for another key part of the show, as it segued directly into “Iron Man.” It was here that Iommi had his chance to assert himself as one of the most dynamic guitarists in metal, allowing his technical prowess to speak for itself, with no need for dramatic flair or erratic movements. Then, only a few more songs between them and the end of an era, Sabbath closed off the set with “God is Dead” and “Children of the Grave,” but the crowd cried out, begging for one last passage in a tome that was about to be closed.
They were met with a wry look in Osbourne’s eyes as he returned to stage for the encore, and the rapid firing of the opening for “Paranoid.” It was a fitting end to a grand performance, and as the lights dimmed a solemnity washed over the crowd. Even after 50 years, Sabbath stayed huge to the end — and in their own way, that’s why they will never truly die.
Setlist –
Black Sabbath
Fairies Wear Boots
After Forever
Into the Void
Snowblind
War Pigs
Behind the Wall of Sleep
N.I.B.
Hand of Doom
Rat Salad
Iron Man
Dirty Women
Children of the Grave
Encore:
Paranoid
Opening the show was Rival Sons who warmed the crowd with a great performance.
They are tour managed by the great Pete Stahl from legendary D.C. Hardcore band Scream.
Pete is one of my favorite singers (& one of my favorite people) ever – The work he & his brother have done in bands like aforementioned Scream & Wool are the soundtrack to my youth. He’s in so many good bands, Goatsnake & also Earthlings w/ my old buddy Dave Catching.
After the show Pete treated me to unparalleled hospitality & we laughed, drank & talked baseball to the wee hours. Good times.
Kraftwerk – The 3D Concert – September 10th – The Bomb Factory – Dallas, TX
Kraftwerk have had a heavy hand in grandfathering all kinds of genres that did not exist in 1975.
They set the template for electro and gave techno a starting point. The influence of their catchy hooks by way of electronic instruments can be felt every time you hear modern pop music.
However four decades later, technically in town for only the second time in their 40 year existence but they band that played in Dallas in 1975 was nothing like the foursome that put on this 3-D concert whom still felt well ahead of their time.
As the lights dimmed and the curtain opened at the start of the night, the audience was greeted with an audio cascade of numbers in a vocoder-driven robot voice. Out of the darkness came billowing digits floating in the air in 3-D as the members of Kraftwerk walked on stage, single file. Ralf Hütter, Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz and Falk Grieffenhagen — all four lined up in a row at the front of stage behind their stations.
The show kicked off with the B-boy electro anthem, Numbers -When Computerworld came out in 1981 the idea of a world of computers was still very much a thing of science fiction. In an age where every person has a computer in their pocket to connect them to the international data streams, Kraftwerk’s over arching theme of the integration of technology and society has only reinforced their status as true prophets with eyes on the future.
During the song Spacelab they had a 3-D flying saucer hovering in space and the audience among satellites from the perspective of a spaceship window. The 3-D effect carried a sense of motion on the audience. You could hear the crowd cheer every time a satellite would shoot off the screen, like they were going over another peak on a rollercoaster. A sea of 3-D glasses fixated on digital objects floating, hovering and surrounding the four robotic men.
After a string of classic and oft-sampled tunes to close out their initial set, the curtain closed for a brief intermission. When it opened up again for the first encore the audience was greeted with four robots, all moving in unison, in place of the their human counterparts for the Man Machine pop anthem Robots. Far from your typical show, this was not four guys rocking on a stage, but — like the rest of the show — was something altogether different. There’s a totally different set of rules for performing Kraftwerk music.
For the second encore Kraftwerk, connected the dots for those that do not get the direct connection between the seminal German legends and their techno progeny with Planet of Visions. During the song, a robot voice and giant 3-D letters spelled out “Detroit, Germany, Electro,” repeating them over and over in a cyber mantra. Although Kraftwerk began their music journey in 1969, they are not only well aware of the direct connection to Detroit techno, but took the time to make sure the audience knows it as well.
There is a common criticism of why anyone would want to go see four guys standing behind modest pedestals of electronic gear. The 3-D extravaganza is front and center on this tour, and there truly is nothing else quite like it. Somewhere at the nexus of a movie, concert and off-Broadway musical about robots exists this wholly unique multimedia event.
Setlist –
Numbers
Computer World
Home Computer
Computer Love
The Man-Machine
Spacelab
The Model
Neon Lights
Metropolis
Autobahn
Geiger Counter
Radioactivity
Electric Café
Tour de France
Chrono
Trans-Europe Express
Encore:
The Robots
Encore 2:
Aéro Dynamik
Planet of Visions
Boing Boom Tschak
Techno Pop
Music Non Stop
Faster Pussycat 30th Anniversary Tour – September 11th – The Rail Club – Fort Worth, TX
Somehow though they’ve been a band for 30 years and this tour was in full swing to celebrate that fact, I had managed to somehow never seen the band before this show. One of my faves that I still listen to regularly.
Lots to unpack here, as I was picking up a friend from the airport hosting his birthday party as well as a wrestling PPV that evening before headed over to the club.
Unbeknownst to me was unique to this special tour was Eddie Trunk & Don Jamieson from That Metal Show were on all dates with Trunk doing hosting duties & Jamieson opening the show was his comedy set.
Can’t tell you how happy I was to seredipitiously miss all of that nonsense. While Trunk is known to be a nice guy & as always be cool to me, I still can’t endorse him, he does not represent me.
People think because he’s on the radio & on TV that validates him when he’s a charlatan at best & Jamieson is simply not funny & after the show seemed like the guy that still can’t laid in spite of receiving a little bit of exposure.
My buddy runs this club & I was more excited to catch up with him – The sparse crowd while not great for business was perfect for an intimate evening. Finally the band took stage –
When I say sparse, I mean as in like their might have been 30 people here & I think that’s largely because no one knew about the show.
If I hadn’t run into the bar manager at the above mentioned Black Sabbath show even I wouldn’t have known.
However, again while bad for business it made the evening so much fun, I was dancing with this older rocker chic & singing songs and this being my first time, I was really excited to cut loose.
Earlier that day it was announced that Alexis Arquette had died of AIDS and singer Taime Downe slowed things down and told a brief story about Arquette before dedicating the power ballad House of Pain to her.
Things quickly picked back up and while it may have taken me 30 years to see them, it was well worth the wait.
After the show, the fun and story telling was only getting started as the band, bar staff and I closed down another bar a few blocks away.
Good times.
Setlist –
Where There’s a Whip There’s a Way
Don’t Change That Song
Cathouse
Slip of the Tongue
Number 1 With a Bullet
The Power and the Glory Hole
House of Pain
Nonstop to Nowhere
You’re So Vain (Carly Simon cover)
Bathroom Wall
Blitzkrieg Bop (Ramones cover)
Sin City (AC/DC cover)
She’s Tight (Cheap Trick cover)
Pretty Fucked Up (Supersuckers cover)
Prophets of Rage – September 25th – Gexa Energy Pavillion – Dallas, TX In an election year, with too many controversial issues unresolved the members of Rage Against the Machine with a few other revolutionary contemporaries decided their was no way they were gonna sit this one out.
Formed earlier this year, Rage minus frontman Zach De La Rocha fronted by B-Real of Cypress Hill and Chuck D of Public Enemy to create a surreal super group with a dream lineup to play classics from all three legendary catalogs, appropriately dubbed Prophets of Rage.
They came ROARING out after a truly ill set from Public Enemy’s DJ Lord with that bands’ Prophets of Rage.
Here’s the good and the bad of it:
First the good:
1) Ummmm….holy shit 3/4th of Rage are on stage playing Public Enemy songs with freaking Chuck D
2) Ummm, holy crap theirs B-Real joining them for Cypress Hill joints (pun intended).
3) So glad to see everyone on stage together kicking serious ass in what could only be described as a dream team.
4) We need these guys and this message more then ever NOW.
The Not so Good:
1) I don’t know if it’s because the band is so new or they were over reaching the expected attendance but the show was largely underattended.
For a venue that holds 20k their were easily less than 5k people here, that combined with it had an almost amateurish, rushed vibe to it in terms of production. Kinda felt like train headed for disaster at times.
2) With all due respect to everyone involved, I never would have guessed that it would take not one but TWO Hip-Hop legends to carry the load of absent Rage frontman Zach De La Rocha & combined it still felt like poorly done, impromptu karaoke at times & made it difficult to sing along.
3) I’m the world’s biggest PE fan & was sad to see that the PE songs they did seemed to be the ones that the crowd knew the least.
Having said all of that, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good time and not going really wasn’t an option. The message, noise and anger in each song was infectious. At one point the Rage guys took a mid-set break and Chuck & B-Real went out into the crowd and were trading PE & Cypress verses to a lit crowd right to their faces!
That was the best part of the whole show for me personally. The night of course wasn’t without a spoken message and a powerful one came from Rage guitarist Tom Morello: After lamenting about citizens being worried about being killed by ISIS in the Middle East or ” a fucking cop right here in the United States!” The whole place unnervingly jumped and that was the essence that made Rage always so genuine.
He also announced that a portion of the proceeds from the show will go to homeless shelters in Dallas.
“Be the change you want to be in the world, but worry about that tomorrow; tonight we are going to have a good time!”
The night concluded with what was to be expected, two massive renditions of “Bulls on Parade” and “Killing In The Name Of.” The finale would not be complete without a heated Morello guitar solo with his teeth, exposing the backside of his guitar that had a perfect and appropriate sign that read “nobody for president.”
There is no telling what the future intentions of Prophets of Rage will be, for now they are back at the perfect time, spreading their message through the only way they know, music.
Setlist –
Prophets of Rage (Public Enemy)
Guerrilla Radio (Rage Against the Machine)
Bombtrack (Rage Against the Machine)
Cochise / She Watch Channel Zero
People of the Sun (Rage Against the Machine)
Miuzi Weighs a Ton (Public Enemy)
How I Could Just Kill a Man (Cypress Hill)
Take the Power Back (Rage Against the Machine)
(Rock) Superstar (Cypress Hill)
Testify (Rage Against the Machine)
Chuck D & B-Real Medley Set:
Hand on the Pump / Can’t Truss It / Insane in the Brain / Bring the Noise / I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That / Welcome to the Terrordome / Jump Around
Sleep Now in the Fire (Rage Against the Machine)
Calm Like a Bomb (Rage Against the Machine)
Bullet in the Head (Rage Against the Machine)
Shut ‘Em Down (Public Enemy)
Know Your Enemy (Rage Against the Machine)
The Party’s Over
No Sleep Till Brooklyn / Fight the Power
Encore:
Bulls on Parade (Rage Against the Machine)
Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine )
Referendum –
Let me also get something off my chest: I have worked in the entertainment industry in some capacity for over 20 years. I’ve put in the miles, the work, made heartbreaking sacrifices to be a part of it & basically have given my life to it but always on my own terms.
However it still seems apparent that I’m not (nor ever have been) the right brand of cool that inspires the teenage wannabe excecutives Live Nation has hired to run this particular venue & every time I go through the “proper channels” to secure the right credentials, it’s always an absurd hassle & even when I get confirmed to cover one of these shows as a photographer it’s a ghastly unpleasant experience.
Naturally you must submit a request but your yes or no comes from some barely of legal drinking age diva who seems to enjoy telling you no or acting like she personally is doing you some huge favor when it’s a yes.
Then a “yes” means having to show up super early to be erroniously linked with the same band of unfuckable over 50 parasites having pissing contests over the size of their lenses who think THEY are the talent.
Then you get herded by Divas Inc like a 3rd grade field trip where you are treated like an unwanted pregnancy to shoot three songs (unless the kids decide that only two songs was actually three & if you disagree than well your not getting any dessert for lunch).
Why would I ever put myself through that again? So to the Sorority Girls that think they run the place at this venue, let me make something clear:
You don’t know me, the people that hired you know me and respect me & because of that I do what I want, I come & go as I please.
For the above show, I forewent your bullshit procedure & walked in like I owned the place because I can because I’ve earned it.
And if for nothing else in the spirit Rage Against The Machine: FUCK YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME.
Photos –
Roy Turner
Catherine Downes
