The Mystery Cupboard

last night (or rather evening, gigs in Japan start at 6pm and finish promptly at 8:30) I went up to Chiba to the cavernous Makuhari Messe Conference Hall to see RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE HGLAGBLAFGHGUG. Only saw them once before, at Reading Festival (UK) in 2000, so it was great to see them again after so long.

Set list:

Guerrilla Radio

People of the Sun

Bombtrack

Testify

Vietnow

Bullet in the Head

Down Rodeo

Bulls on Parade

Tire Me

Know Your Enemy

Sleep Now in the Fire

War Within a Breath

Encore: Freedom, Killing in the Name

So there we go, a nice balance of the three studio albums (although nothing from Renegades). The one gripe I have is that the setlist is ostensibly the same as the one from 2000 as there’s been no new material (obviously). It also felt like too short a set, considering there was no support band. But I’m nitpicking. The gig was awesome, the band were on top form, Zack was full of energy and the crowd was demented. Thirty seconds into Guerrilla Radio some cheeky fucker had already jumped onto my back to crowdsurf. After three songs I had been swept back to the rear barrier and was pretty much lodged there for the rest of the gig.

Some videos (not taken by me):

Sleep Now in the Fire (I reckon this little improv bit will be a new song someday)

Bullet in the Head

Part 2: Anonymous held their Scientology demonstrations yesterday too, pretty well summed up here. It seems like they all went off without a hitch, with around 3-4000 people worldwide showing up. The V-mask effect worked well.