Rage Against The Machine / Wu-Tang Clan / Atari
Teenage Riot
Continental Airlines Arena
East Rutherford, New Jersey
August 20, 1997
____Zach de la Rocha fought the law
of gravity, and the law of gravity won. Four songs into Rage Against
the Machine's set at New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena, de la
Rocha was in his customary hyper-pogo mode. Making like a jumping
bean, he leapt up, down; up, down; up, down---and then, suddenly
stayed down. The band kept playing, but all the audience could see of
the dreadlocked singer was his feet sticking out from behind the
monitors. De la Rocha was helped offstage, and the band took a long
break while an ice pack was applied to his ankle. The crowd started
cheering his name, but behind the scenes, someone tweaked the
famously earned foursome: Public Enemy's "911 Is a Joke" started
blasting from the speakers.
____Maybe de la Rocha's ankle collapsed
under the weight of the tour expectations. Rage weren't tone deaf to
hear kindred spirit in the Wu-Tang Clan's music. The Staten Island
collective's apocalyptic oeuvre is the only sound around able to
convince you that the revolution Rage promotes may actually be around
the corner. By touring together, the two groups might have hoped to
tear down the remnants of the wall Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith left
standing so many years ago.
____Unfortunately, the only wall to
crumble at the Continental was the one separating the seating area
from the mosh pit. Throughout the Wu-Tang's set, wave after wave of
guys gathered together and charged the floor, stepping on the heads
and shoulders of the seated fans and all but tackling the vastly
outnumber security guards.
____It would be easy to say that the
overwhelmingly white-male crowd's churlish behavior undercut Rage's
faith in grassroots youth movements, nut the foursome's well-meaning
agit-pop is vague enough at times that these kids actually might have
thought that they were embodying it. When de la Rocha shouted the
"Killing in the Name" refrain, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell
me!" it seemed like he was speaking up for the bum-rushing
masses.
____The audience's
particularly brazen antiauthoritarian attitude may have had something
to do with recent events. The week of the show, the local papers were
filled with stories about a Brooklyn cop who allegedly sodomized a
Haitian immigrant with a toilet plunger handle and then shoved it in
the man's mouth. Even to New Yorkers accustomed to stories of police
brutality, this was an exceptionally disturbing case. But Wu-Tang,
who have had their share of run-ins with the law, managed a nuanced
response. Surveying their stage set-- an inner-city diorama featuring
a liquor store, a "weed spot," a Wu-Wear outlet, and a cop car
crashed into a laundromat-- front man RZA shouted, "Fuck Officer
Volpe," but added a caveat: "For all officers who do their jobs, we
got lots of love." De la Rocha, however, hyperbolically informed us
that "it's the cops that are creating all the violence in the
city."
____Hyperbole
is Atari Teenage Riot's stock in trade, though no one seemed to
care--or dance---during the Berlin digital hardcore trio's
earsplitting, 20 minute opening set. While Rage knit together hip-hop
and hardcore in a search for common ground, Atari's collision of
electronica and punk declares both genres---all genres---hopelessly
pointless and co-opted. Front man Alec Empire slunk indolently about
the stage in leather ants, exhorting the audience to "delete
yourself."
____By
comparison, Wu-Tang still have faith in the powers or show biz
razzmatazz. RZA introduced the band members one solo turn at a time,
as if it were the Huxtable Family Variety Hour (in fact, RZA
displayed a decidedly Cosby-esque scowl when Ol' Dirty Bastard
ordered all the "bitches" and "hos" in the audience to take off their
shirts). Despite their musical-theater moves, the Wu-Tang's set was a
somewhat half-asses affair, lacking the precision of the records, too
blaring for its raggedness to be endearing., All the Wu MCs possess
mad skills, but only Ol' Dirty's mushmouth charisma and Method Man's
laid-back phrasings hit home.
____Though
they're people-power to the core, Rage's set rose and fell on
starpower, and after de la Rocha's injury, they strained to regain
their momentum. Without his tireless crowd-rousing leaping, their
deft balance of thrash and hip-hop lacked its usual dynamics. Rage
are one of the few remaining alt-rock bands with enough skills and
ambition to reliably fill arenas, but we only caught glimpses of what
an electrifying live act they can be. "People of the Sun"
(pre-sprain) and "Bulls on Parade) (post-) were everything you could
want from protest rock; guitarist Tom Morello's expert approximations
of a turntable and the Barbara Kruger--meets--Raymond Pettibon
cartoon backdrop were potent props. Too bad a lot of Rage's songs
sound like a lot of their other songs.
____For the
encore, RZA joined Rage for a pro forma peace, love, and happiness
number, but the only real conciliation of the night came during
Wu-Tang's set, when Method Man stage dived into the audience. For a
minute he was lost in a sea of bodies, and unless RZA's concern was
just an afcct, this haden't happened before. Eventually, he made his
way back on stage, and the momentiumtousness of the occasion ("Black
Man Falls Into Hands of White Mob---and Lives to Tell!") inspired
everyone to join in. Making like a hip-hop savior, RZA jumped into
the audience feet first and walked atop a sea of hands and shoulders.
His ankeles never even buckeled.
Jeff Salamon
return to article list