Testify

When I was a freshmen in high school, my English teacher assigned a reading from a book called A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Specifically, we were supposed to read the chapter entitled "A People's War?" and use the information to gain some perspective for our primary assignment - Hiroshima by John Hersey.

Hiroshima is a pretty standard high school text, and I would imagine that it's fairly common to engage in a classroom debate similar to the one that we had: was the nuclear attack on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a justifiable act? Was it necessary? And were there ulterior motives involved?

While many people today question "the bomb", the overall military engagement known as World War II has received little, if any scrutiny along similar lines.

However, our assigned reading from Zinn's book made the outlandish argument that perhaps the United State's involvement WWII was not the black and white battle between good and evil that we learned about in history class. Everybody questions Vietnam, nobody knows anything about Korea and WWI is ancient history - but World War II is typically considered to be beyond reproach. Zinn changed all that, and made endless series of compelling arguments that shattered my preconceived notions about nearly every major event in American history.

Anyway, I bring this up because my introduction to Zinn's book led to a fascination with leftist history and politics that lasted all through high school (it has since been tempered by time and realism). Throughout the nineties, there was one band that was talking about the same things that I was reading about, and making incendiary yet sophisticated statements about class, history, race and international affairs. Not only was the content of their lyrics brilliant, but their music was absolutely incredible and inventive.

Rage Against the Machine.

Unfortunately, I never got to see Rage in high school, and before I knew it, they had broken up. I always regretted not seeing them perform, so when I heard that they were reuniting for the Coachella music festival, my friends and I decided that we had to be there.

I'll write more about my trip to San Diego, but I want to describe the atmosphere at Coachella while it's still fresh in my mind.

We arrived on the third and final day of the festival at around 5pm. We walked around for a bit, grabbed some food, and then headed over to the main stage where Rage would be performing at 10:40. Although there were 60 other bands, all we cared about was being in good position when RATM took the stage.

From 7:30 to 8:30 we watched Crowded House, an Australian rock band that achieved a string of hits in the 1980's. This was pretty cool because I was recently introduced to their music, and also, they were reuniting this night as well. They sounded good but their sedate melodies were not what this crowd came to see, and midway through their signature song, lead singer Neil Finn was struck by a water bottle. Poor Neil.

From 9:00 to 10:00 we saw a band called Manu Chao, who I knew nothing about, but later learned that he's a French/Spanish musician who plays a fusion of jazz, rock, reggae, hip hop and other styles. He also had a revolutionary tilt that was more in line with that of Rage - so that got the crowed pretty fired up. Much of the lyrics were in Spanish, but his lone English diatribe summed up his show nicely: "You cannot fight terrorism with terrorism. You cannot fight terrorism with terrorism. You must fight terrorism with schools and education." A simple chant, and true to be sure, uttered by a man who looked the part of a revolutionary.

Once Manu Chao left the stage, the mad rush towards the front was on. For the next hour I fought tooth and nail to gain every inch I could; by the time the headliners were set to come on, I had situated myself within 20 feet of the center of the stage.

The conditions in the crowd were pretty tough to handle. The air was thick and hot. Nearly everyone was soaking wet from a combination of sweat and water. Some people passed out. One guy threw up. And many people cried and begged to be lifted out. With every ebb and flow of the audience, you had to fight to make absolutely sure that you didn't fall to the ground.

At 10:45, Zach, Tom, Tim and Brad took the stage - "Good evening, we are Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles, California." Then the band broke into the song "Testify" and with the last chord of the intro, all 60,000 fans were going absolutely nuts (watch this clip to the end). Everyone was jumping to the beat and people were packed so tightly, that your feet lifted off the ground whether you wanted them to or not.

Overall, the set looked like this:

'Testify'
'Bulls On Parade'
'People Of The Sun'
'Bombtrack'
'Bullet In The Head'
'Down Rodeo'
'Guerrilla Radio'
'Renegades Of Funk'
'Calm Like A Bomb'
'Sleep Now In The Fire'
'Wake Up'
-ENCORE-
'Freedom'
'Killing In The Name'

One of the highlights, and the part of the show that has actually received some significant press coverage, was Zach's speech towards the end of "Wake Up".

"If the same laws were applied to U.S. Presidents as those were applied to the Nazi's during WWII, then every single one of 'em, every last rich white one of 'em, from Truman on would have been hung to death, and shot. And this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be. And the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations. Way beyond elections. Way Beyond every four years of pulling levers. Way beyond that, because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel, that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries, and profit from their reconstruction, in order to survive, and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down generation after generation after generation after generation after generation. Wake up."

At the conclusion of this rant, 60,000 fans pumped their fists and recited the final line of "Wake Up" - "How long, not long. Cause what your reap, is what you sow."

Strong words. I didn't expect anything less.

Coachella