Southern California is currently in the middle of a rare brutal heat wave, that residents of Phoenix or San Antonio may laugh at, but 25,000 attendees over two days were by and large way out of their comfort zones while the sun was out. Even with Papa Roach on the bill, however, the bro factor we anxiously feared was surprisingly low.

Eminem was hands down the highlight of the fest, backed up by D12. With the crowd in the palm of his hand, he tore through all of his singles with a fury. Saturday certainly had the more eclectic lineup, featuring Bush’s first performance in eight years, Crash Kings, Big Boi, and House Of Pain, with KISS closing the night.

And what a spectacle KISS was. Yes, the same spectacle that has been on constant re-run for twenty years. Yes, without Ace or Peter. No, I still don’t like them. But I get it. The pyrotechnics, Paul’s insane castrato ringleader hype-mannery, the giant mechanical platform… It was like a Bruckheimer movie performed live in real time.

Sunday was much more focused on punk bands, with Against Me!, Bad Religion, Suicidal Tendencies, The Black Pacific, Rise Against and of course highlight Blink-182 drawing our attention. We missed Biffy Clyro by accident, and we skipped 30 Seconds To Mars on purpose.

Please pardon the lack of photos of Blink-182 and Eminem. They only allowed photographers that were willing to blow them.

You can also hear the first single, The Devil In Stitches, over at The Bad Religion Page.

Stay tuned for our full review.

Thanks to Some Kind Of Awesome for the heads-up on this one.

It’s that time again! Who’s up for some free tickets to the We The People festival, headed by Bad Religion and Suicidal Tendencies?

The fourth annual installment of the We the People Music and Arts Festival is landing in downtown Los Angeles next Saturday, November 21 at the LA Center Studios to celebrate youth involvement in social and political activism. The headliners are punk legends Bad Religion and Suicidal Tendencies, supported by rap superduo Madvillain (MF Doom and Madlib) and one of our favorite hip-hop crews ever, Crown City Rockers, as well as Blu & Exile, Pepper, The Glitch Mob and Flobots. Black Eyed Peas leader Will.i.am will be playing an exclusive DJ set as well.

According to the official We The People site, “The organization of the We The People festival was conceived due to a great need for a stimulant in social awareness and an encompassing platform within the urban community to inspire the involvement and active participation of the conscious urban youth populous throughout the country.”

The LA Center Studios sound stages will feature two outdoor stages, an art exhibit, vendor booths, guest speakers and more than 30 musical acts. The event will also include speeches by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, criminal defense attorney Christopher Darden and Hip-Hop Summit Action Network President Dr. Benjamin Chavis. The concert, which is all ages, runs from 2PM to 1AM, rain or shine. Tickets and information are at wethepeoplefestival.com, but we’ve got a free pair for you.

If you’d like to check out the festival on us, hit us up either here in the comments, on Twitter or Facebook by midnight on Tuesday, Nov. 17. No catch, no strings attached. Free music. Come get it.

You’ve very likely already heard the sweatshop-protest track Re-education (Through Labor), whether you know it or not. It’s all over FM radio, but you could’ve mistaken it for one of the ten other Rise Against songs that sounds precisely the same. Oh hey, an explosive and anthemic chorus with chants and pounding double-time drums. What are the odds… 

Look. Re-Education is a good song, and Rise Against know what the hell they’re doing. They’re among the very best of their kind, the new generation of socially aware screamers against the machine. Melodic hardcore with an anti-establishment message has its place, absolutely. But the music is, inarguably, extremely formulaic. You know what you’re getting when you pick up a new Rise Against record- you know when the screams are coming, you can anticipate the inflection right down to the fourth-chorus backup chants. It’s a familiar flavor you can rely on.

So let’s forget about these ridiculous (and blasphemous) comparisons to Black Flag. Hell, it’s not even cool to call them successors to Bad Religion, although it does seem that they used Recipe For Hate as a loose blueprint for Appeal To Reason. But let’s leave the punk rock history book as it is- there’s no new entry to be made here.

Rise Against may be more than fun weekend rebellion music, but give me a break with this “underdogs of society” action. It just doesn’t apply.

Vocalist Tim McIlrath has come into his own as a singer, as evidenced by the single-on-deck Long Forgotten Sons, but his lower registers are still a bit shaky. And lyrically, he’s all over the place. The Teenage Metaphors 101 color-by-numbers emotion of From Heads Unworthy contains the following dealbreaker: We are the children you reject and disregard / These aching cries come from the bottom of our hearts… Really? How old are these guys again?

Clever couplings like This is not a test, this is cardiac arrest don’t do much to help matters. And though the lyrics to Hero Of War may be made up of actual stories from soldiers in Iraq, it’s a shamelessly melodramatic acoustic track that would fit much more appropriately on a Nickelback record. And give me a goddamned break with the military drum roll. The heartstring-tuggery here doesn’t strike me as sincere. Call me numb to pseudo-patriotic propaganda, but I can only listen to the word “flag” or “soldier” so many times in one song.

There may be something wrong with my ears or frame of pop reference, but I’ll be damned if Audience Of One doesn’t sound just like something the Goo Goo Dolls have already done. I can picture it now: Johnny Rzeznik strumming his guitar in his pleather jacket, in front of the train tracks or some shit, singing where haaaave they gone? 

And while we’re talking about pop fluff, The Dirt Whispered strikes me as something close to what Bryan Adams would sound like as the singer for Blink 182. 

Producer Bill Stevenson helps the band hone their skills to a fine point on Appeal To Reason, loading up the choruses with bells and whistles, and keeping a spit-shine gleam on every note. Rise Against know they’ve got a working formula, and they’re sticking to it. If you’re a fan, you won’t be disappointed with this one. If you don’t like them already, this album won’t do anything for you.

Appeal To Reason
October 7, 2008
Geffen

1. Collapse (Post-Amerika)
2. Long Forgotten Sons
3. Re-Education (Through Labor)
4. The Dirt Whispered
5. Kotov Syndrome
6. From Heads Unworthy
7. The Strength To Go On
8. Audience Of One
9. Entertainment
10. Hero Of War
11. Savior
12. Hairline Fracture (w/ Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio)
13. Whereabouts Unknown