RATM summer tour?
By chance I'm looking for Rage news this evening and happen to notice today's announcement that they will be one of the headlining acts at Lollapalooza in August. All of a sudden I'm pricing a weekend trip to Chicago ($500+ each unless I book reward tickets).
Then I see this:
Tom Morello Goes Full ‘Stache For Anti-Flag; Also, Rage Against The Machine Touring This Summer
Rage is touring Europe from June to mid-July followed by a month-long break before their final dates in England. Throw in Chicago smack in the middle (8/1-8/3), and things are looking promising.
Good evening, we are Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles, California
Been looking for a transcript or video of Zack's speech on Saturday, essentially a response to accusations that he had called for the assassination of the President during a speech he gave at Coachella. Finally got a chance to view a few videos this morning as YouTube is blocked in the office. [Edit: Here is my rough attempt to transcribe the text of that speech. Thanks to brooklyntx for posting a link to the video.]
A couple of months ago, those fascist motherfuckers at the Fox News network attempted to pin (?) this band into a corner by suggesting that we said that the President should be assassinated. Nah, what we said was: that he should be brought to trial as a war criminal and hung and shot. That's what we said. That's what we said. And we won't back away from the present (?), from the position cuz the real assassinator is Bush and Cheney and the whole administration for the lives they have destroyed here and in Iraq. They're the ones.
And what they refuse to air, what they refuse to air which was far more provocative in my mind and in the mind of my bandmates is this: that this system has become so brutal and vicious and cruel that it needs to start wars and profit from the destruction around the world in order to survive as a world power. That's what we said.
And we refuse not to stand up, we refuse to back down from that position not only for the poor kids who are being left out in the desert to die, but for the Iraqi youth, the Iraqi people, their families, and their friends, and their youth who are standing up and resisting the U.S. occupation everyday. And if we truly want to end this fucking miserable war, we have to stand up with the same force that the Iraqi youth are standing up with everyday and bring these motherfuckers to their knees. Wake up.
[8/3 update: corrected some remarks, source: Wikipedia]
And the bombs keep falling
Rage came out around 9:00 pm (was scheduled for 8:50). Encore concluded around 10:15 pm. Slightly disappointed they didn't play Renegades of Funk (which they did at Coachella), but great show nonetheless. No bleachers for VIP after all. Set list follows:
1. Testify
2. Bulls on Parade
3. People of the Sun
4. Know Your Enemy
5. Vietnow
6. Bullet in the Head
7. Down Rodeo
8. Tire Me
9. Guerilla Radio
10. Calm Like a Bomb
11. Sleep Now in the Fire
12. Wake Up
Encore:
13. Freedom (Township Rebellion)
14. Killing in the Name
Rock the Bells set times posted
Set times are finally available here, but Adobe Flash is required. I hate that some web sites exclude non-Flash clients from receiving content so here is a text file containing the set times for the 7/28 NYC show. The venue map shows bleachers in the VIP section. Nice. Thinking of showing up around 3:30 to catch Public Enemy, but most importantly: 90 minutes of Rage. OH YEAH.
A good friend of ours said that if the same laws were applied to U.S. presidents as were applied to the Nazis after World War 2 that every single one of them, every last rich white one of them from Truman on would have been hung to death and shot - and this current administration is no exception. -Zack de la Rocha
Supply and demand
Interestingly, Rock the Bells tickets for the NYC 7/28 show have gone on sale again. Resale prices on Ebay have fallen sharply. I decided to buy a VIP ticket afterwards, but there's no way I will get $160 for my remaining GA ticket (that was after exorbitant Ebay/Paypal fees). Days after the first sellout, GA tickets were going for $200+. I saw a few this evening on Craigslist listed at $60... Anyways, I'm pretty fired up for this.
Let’s get dirrty
Project is approaching as close to a death march as I will likely see in this job. My thinking about work outside of the office is annoying. What keeps me fired up at work these days? Christina Aguilera. No joke. We saw her in February when she opened up the B2B tour, and as I look back, that was one of the best concerts I have attended even though I recognized only a handful of songs at the time. I put Stripped on the MP3 mix disc in my car to maintain a modicum of variety, but I almost always skipped it. Started listening to it recently, and I am hooked.
I’m raging, ripping up the stage and don’t it sound amazing
Incredibly, the pre-sale for Rock the Bells did not sell out this week. Not even an entire day after it started. On a whim, I checked the Ticketmaster site this morning as tickets for NYC went on sale to the general public today. Apparently, the show sold out in about 15 minutes. Tickets are going for over $150 on Ebay already.
The rage is relentless
Redundant systems at my reach, pre-registered with Ticketmaster, calendar marked, cell phone alarm set. Regular weekly meeting gets rescheduled to now. No problem thanks to good 'ol wi-fi. Meeting runs longer than I'd hoped. Checking the web site every minute just before 9:00. Conversation switches to small talk. Suddenly, the pre-sale is on. Heartbeat is pounding loudly in my throat. Tappity-tap. Breeze through the visual verification test, which is illegible to this sighted user half the time. Click standard mail delivery without even reading the purchase details.
I have two tickets for Rock the Bells in NYC. Yeah, boy.
Poppin’, sockin’, rockin’ puttin’ a side of hip-hop
Rock the Bells tickets go on sale this Saturday. I was concerned that a pre-sale notice had been sent while my email was down, but no such notification has gone out yet. Public Enemy has been added to the line-up. Yikes. Tickets start at $82 ($156 for VIP) plus the usual Ticketmaster surcharge. I won't be surprised to see non-VIP tickets go over $200 once this sells out.
EnTouch broadband connectivity has been rather flaky this last week so I'm definitely gonna have to consider making backup plans for Saturday morning. 
Rage Against the Machine adds more dates. New York, San Bernadino, and San Francisco.
It turns out Rage Against the Machine will play more than one show after all--the seminal L.A. band will join the Wu-Tang Clan for three shows under the banner of Rock the Bells, the acclaimed hip-hop festival that kicks off in New York on July 28 and hits Southern California on Aug. 11.
