Raging For the Machine

Last week our rock and roll correspondent, Chad O, reported his chagrin at discovering the First Avenue concert billed as "Rock for Democracy" was actually a dedicated fundraiser for the John F. Kerry campaign.

He bought his ticket before finding this out. But like a good rock and roll soldier, Chad went anyway, and files this report from the front lines:

Sorry for the delay on the review of "Rock for Democracy". Busy work week and just trying to get my thoughts together on an altogether less than spectacular evening of music are to blame.

For the most part, the people in the crowd were only paying attention to the stage when a band was playing so I'm guessing the majority of the crowd was there not because it was a fundraiser for MN DFL and John Kerry but rather because they wanted to see some music. Probably 20% were sporting a button or t-shirt espousing the typically profound thoughts of liberals. One shirt had mention of Haliburton on it, I wasn't able to catch the smaller print. One said "F*ck Coleman", (without the asterisk) ... very classy. I was going to ask her if her shirt was meant for Norm or Nick but I don't think she would have gotten the joke. (Saint Paul's note - unless it was Laura Billings wearing that shirt. She definitely gets the joke - she's married to it).

Of the 20% in the audience for political purposes and not music, the world would have benefited if they had chosen to put their ticket money towards shampoo and/or deodorant. A little soap never hurt anyone.

The musicians in general stayed away from the political statements. I got to the show about 9pm (doors opened at 7pm) and left by 11:30 pm. The sound was horrible, whenever someone was on stage just talking, you couldn't understand a word they were saying. They had a video screen up that showed a Wellstone video. I think it may be time for them to moveon.org on the whole Wellstone thing, but that's just me.

Here are two reviews of the show ... one with photos, including Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak stage diving.

(SP - Apparently Rybak's position is 'yes' to stage diving, but smoking is far too dangerous an activity for bars. Speaking of dangerous, Rybak may wish to heed the advice given by the reviewer next time he leaps off a stage head first: Next time you may want to flip over on your back to protect, the uh, giblets, you know.).

In the review it mentions that Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum said that "we need to vote that Bush motherf*cker out of office". (SP - and the reviewer's comments: "it felt like a relief, like laughter finally come after grief. Amen, brother Dave, Amen." Somebody dropped the MF bomb, phhhhhew, that feels better.)

What's truly unfortunate is that of all the talented bands in the Twin Cities during the 90's, Soul Asylum was the one that made it big. All in all, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. At least none of the bands I actually enjoy said anything that would cause me to stop enjoying their music. The left can have the Honeydogs and Soul Asylum as far as I'm concerned, I never liked them anyway.