Tag Archive for 'Rage Against The Machine'

Though if you ask nicely I’ll consider it

Published
by
Colm
on 10 June, 2010
in Music
. 2 Comments

The other day I went to see Rage Against the Machine1 and oh golly my me hurts. The old head-bangin’ muscles are holding up well, but at this point my calves have turned entirely solid. I could break rocks with these things.

All of which is to say: what a gig. I saw em a couple of years ago at Oxegen and they were so-so, which I now reckon was more down to the crowd than anything else (plus and also, I was pretty sober… textbook error). The crowd in the Point2  ranged from hugely enthusiastic to not-quite-as-enthusiastic-but-willing-to-stand-aside, which is a-ok in my book. Age-wise, about half the people there were thirty-year-olds pretending they were 16 (as my brother put it). The rest were wans and young f’llas who assumably listen to Rage on account of they’re a cool band from back in the day, much as my generation listen to Iron Maiden. I’m somewhere in the middle, but it pleases me that I’m on course to becoming a middle-aged rocker.

One thing, however… whenever a mosh pit formed near us, not only did the bouncers not stop it, they actively helped people who lost their footing. I’ll reiterate: the bouncers contributed to the crowd having a good time. Is this a thing that happens now? Concert security have always been, and are supposed to be, the worst people in the world. If you pull that out from under kids’ feet, what the hell are they supposed to believe in? The goodness of humankind? No fucking thank you. These people’d want to sort themselves out reet smart before we all start getting notions.

  1. Or, as I said in an IM conversation, “Tonight I’m going to Rage Against the Machine”. The ambiguity of that makes me want to start a band called Bang a Donkey. [↩]
  2. IT IS CALLED THE POINT [↩]

A festival in miniature

Published
by
Colm
on 15 July, 2008
in Music
. 5 Comments

Following much humming, hawing and lurking around toutless.com, myself and the lady headed to Oxegen on Sunday. It’s the first time I’ve been at a festival and not camped, and it was pleasingly hassle-free. For one thing, not carrying a weekend’s worth of luggage meant I was able to get further than three feet from the bus without wanting to kill myself.

Of course, the flip side of that particular coin was that I went in boozeless and had to rely on the on-site bars. I was expecting to be fleeced, but a fiver got you a half-litre of decent enough beer in a big shturdy cup. Eh? Drinking at a festival is cheaper than drinking in a Dublin pub?

(Yeah, I know you can easily get a pint for under a fiver. Last time I was out, though, I ordered two pints of Paulaner and was charged €12.60 for my trouble, so it still averages out to everyone being a bunch of manky grabarses.)

I don’t know if MCD pulled the thumb out or what but the organisation seemed top notch. Queueing throughout the day, including the bus home, was at a minimum and the layout didn’t cause any of the usual headaches. There was of course talk of alleged rapes, alleged beatings and general alleged thievery but shur and it wouldn’t allegedly be Oxegen otherwise.

Bands: We Are Scientists were entertaining as always (creeping towards number one on the would-have-a-pint-with list… Guy Garvey will take some shifting though). Random techno was random techno. MGMT were probably ok, I survived the cattle pen for all of 30 seconds before I decided a pint was more in order. The Raconteurs put on a good show although I did kind of fall asleep for part of their set (rock n’ roll). Everything else was a general haze until Rage came on – cracking stuff, and the main reason I was there. A great set list and the encore was only mighty.

Overall, very glad I went. I kind of wish we’d stuck with our original plan and camped, but what can you do. Roll on Electric Picnic.

[More elsewhere: B'dum B'dum is a year late but still jolly entertaining, UnaRocks is as always on the case, and Jazz Biscuit has aggregated the shit out of the bad boy. Rosie may or may not recover enough to write it up at some point too... the scamp.]