Prophets of Rage - August 21, 2016 - Xfinity Center Mansfield MA

Prophets of Rage

Xfinity Center, Mansfield MA

Sunday August 21, 2016

Support – Awolnation

I realize its been a few months since the show and a review might hardly make any sense, but I had the chance to write so I wanted to.

Make America Rage Again!  Not only the tour name, but emblazoned on merchandise too.

A few months back I had heard about this new band being formed.  It was 3 of the 4 guys from Rage Against the Machine (Tom – guitar, Tim – bass and  Brad-drums)  The singers in the band would be Chuck D (Public Enemy) and B-Real (Cypress Hill).  On paper it all sounded pretty neat and thankfully live they mostly pulled it off.

DJ Lord got the crowd up for a 12-15 minute span of his turntable work.  Mixing everything from Stevie Wonder to Jackson 5 to Led Zeppelin.  It was neat but seemed to linger a little longer than it should.

Opening with Public Enemy song “Prophets of Rage” the band swerved over the next 90 minutes in an out of the various bands catalogs.  They even tossed some cover tunes in good measure.

The venue, which was very undersold to my eyes, seemed to enjoy the mix and match of the set list and you could see the fan bases of the 3 bands represented. 

Full Set

Prophets of Rage (Public Enemy)
Guerrilla Radio (Rage Against the Machine)
Bomtrack (RATM)
Miuzi Weighs a Ton (PE)
People of the Sun (RATM)
Take the Power Back (RATM)
Rock Superstar (Cypress Hill)
Testify (RATM)
Hand on the Pump/Can’t Truss It/Insane in the Bran/Bring the Noise/I Ain’t Going out like that/Welcome to the Terrordome (B-real and Chuck D in audience)
Sleep Now in the Fire (RATM)
Cochise/She Watch Channel Zero
The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen)
Bullet in the Head (RATM)
Shut Em Down (PE)
Know Your Enemy (RATM)
The Party’s Over
No Sleep Till Brooklyn/Fight the Power
Bulls on Parade (RATM)
Killing in the Name (RATM)

As you can tell it did bounce around and kept the energy high.  Morello was pretty tame in his political messages by most standards.  He did have a piece of paper on the back of his guitar that read “Nobody for President” and did make a note that some proceeds from the evenings show was going to local charities.  Always a plus.

Overall it was fun, but I felt it lacked just that little “something”.  It could be the fact that Zack De La Rocha was missing and being the voice of Rage Against the Machine is a tough role to fill.  The venue was a bit large too, put that in a smaller place (even for two nights) and it really would have been something.  Also a big plus on this was I scored these tickets using my Ticketmaster voucher (my lone use so far) and had ticket upgrade from open air seats to section 5.