Rock the Bells

On Saturday Diana and I made the $75 per ticket splurge and headed to the SF Rock the Bells tour date at McCovey Cove just outside of PacBell/AT&T/Phone Conglomerate Stadium. Here’s what transpired during the course of the day.

We got to the venue around 10:45 AM, and there was no line at will call. YES! Only then do we realize that the line to get in is about a half a mile along the cove. We later found out that estimated attendance was 80,000 people, so it could have been worse, I guess.

The reason we went so early was to catch the first act of the day, Jedi Mind Tricks. Gravel-voiced, angry rap from Philadelphia that was really impressive live. I only have their most recent album, and didn’t think too much of it for the first 5 or 6 listens. It finally “clicked” about 10 days before the show, so it was good to be able to catch them.

Second up was Immortal Technique from NYC, who somehow was even more pissed-off than Jedi Mind Tricks. I had only ever heard one song by him, but as soon as he was done, Diana turned to me and said, “We’re getting some of his albums, right?” Best line of the day was spewed by him during a freestyle that went something like “Like someone with AIDS, you’ll wish you never f*cked with me”. I can’t wait to pick up some of his stuff.

We stuck around the main stage to see what Pharoe Monch was about, but it ended up being a bit boring, especially after the intensity of the first two acts, so we made a detour to the beer gardens, then over to the second stage to check out the best white, fat, rapper from Rhode Island ever, Sage Francis. The man sure is getting puffy, but still put on a heck of a show. No band this time like a couple of months ago, just him and his tracks, reminiscent of his early shows. Great stuff from him as usual, including some killer dance moves during “Dance Monkey” as his closer.

As soon as Sage was done we rushed over to the Main Stage as Talib Kwali was already about ten minutes into his set. After a handful of songs, Mos Def came out to join him and they flowed straight into some Black Star material. Then TK ditched the stage and Mos Def did some of his solo stuff.

Really killer move on their parts, it totally worked and was a ton of fun. It was a super nice day out, but a little windy, which caused some of the lighting over the stage to sway back and forth. Mos Def noticed this and freaked out a little bit, saying he had children and wasn’t down with “wobble wobble, shaky shaky”. So he did the last few songs in the barrier in the crowd. Good for those near him, kind of a bummer for everyone else who had to watch it on the screens instead.

Up next was everyone’s favorite Cannabis loving goof-balls, Cypress Hill. I had never seen them before, and never owned a Cypress Hill album, but this was a surprising treat. A 15 foot inflatable Buddha with a pot leaf on his belly rose up on the stage as they broke into their first song. About 30 minutes in, the DJ called for a smoke break. B-Real came back on stage a couple of minutes later with the biggest joint I’ve ever seen, even in a comedy movie as a gag. I’m not joking when I’m saying he had to have rolled the thing in newspaper, it was that big. Of course, this being SF, the crowd roared their appreciation and toked on their much smaller amounts along with the band.

Next up was Public Enemy, one of my favorites. I had a tough choice here, because Blackalicious were playing the second stage at the same time, but those guys are West Coast based so I figured I’ll have another chance to check them out later. I think I made the correct decision, too, as PE broke into “Bring tha Noize” their second song in. I got excited to scream along to one of my favorite PE songs, and then noticed a white dude with a long, pointy, red beard on the big screen. Instantly I recognized him, as did about 50,000 others and everybody went ape as Scott Ian from Anthrax laid down the guitar parts on the remainder of the song. Totally unexpected and a hell of a lot of fun. PE did almost every song I wanted to hear, except for “Give it Up”, but that could be forgiven.

Flava Flav closed out the set with “911’s a Joke” with his son on stage dancing with him. Then Flav told everyone that he was coming out with Flava of Love 3, and it was the quietest it had been all day at the show. No one wanted to boo him, as they had just put on a heck of a show, but not a single person cheered either. It was really, really awkward, until someone behind me screamed out, “It’s OK Foofy Foof!” Awesome.

The crowd around the main stage started to get really, really thick around the second half of PE’s set, and with Wu-Tang coming up next, it got even worse. Diana couldn’t even see, so she was just surrounded by sweaty people smoking dope while she watched the concert on a big screen. I wanted to stick it out, but even I was having trouble seeing, plus, I’m bummed to say, they weren’t very good.

I was so excited to see them, but for some reason I had kind of feared seeing them. The whole Clan was there, minus ODP of course (RIP). There were just too many guys running around screaming, it just didn’t work. Method Man did do a couple verses of “Bring tha Pain”, and that was fun, but most everything else had them yelling over the top of each other. Kind of a bummer.

The headliner for Rock the Bells 2007 was a reunited Rage Against the Machine. There was a real buzz going through the crowd as we waited for the band to get set up, it really was “electric” (lame cliché, I just don’t know how else to put it). By this time, we had bailed way, way back so we could see the stage, although they were very small, but we could also breathe and move, which was nice. As soon as the band came on and broke into the first song, we were constantly moving. I thrashed about so much I just about threw out my back and my voice. Incredible live show that saw them do both “Freedom” and “Killing in the Name Of” as their encore. Crazy feeling having thousands of people screaming “F*ck You, I Won’t Do What You Tell Me!” and having it echo off the buildings and across the water around us. They were really tight and makes you wonder if a full-scale reunion tour/album could be in the works.

Exhausted after our 11.5 hour concert experience, we hopped a train home, ate leftover takeout, and went to bed sunburnt, cramped, slightly deafer, and completely, contentedly tired that only comes from a festival concert experience that you know you’ll never forget.