Rise Against w/ The Nightwatchman and Polar Bear Club
Despite a lacklustre sixth record I was quite looking forward to seeing Rise Against and this was in no small part due to the excellent support they’d brought on tour with them this time.
First up were Polar Bear Club, opening with ‘Killin’ It’ from their latest, and most excellent third record Clash Battle Guilt Pride. It was a joy to finally see these boys live and they certainly made the best of their situation by not only whacking out a flawless eight song set, but they even managed to win over a largely ambivalent crowd with the triple header of ‘Bottled Wind’, ‘My Best Days’ and ‘Screams in Caves’, and that includes a healthy dose of crowd participation. The only real downside was that they did seem rather dwarfed by the larger stage and I don’t know if this was nerves, the size of the stage or the huge amount of fans that’d packed out the sold out O2 Academy. It’s a minor niggle though because they pulled the best songs from throughout their back catalogue, which is no mean feat when you’ve only got 30 minutes to impress. ‘Living Saints’ and ‘Most Miserable Life’ were two definite highlights, yet they still weren’t as good as the stuff they played from their latest album. Afterwards, more than a few people made their way to the merch stand to pick up their records so I think it’s a job well done. 8
I was sceptical at what Tom Morello as The Nightwatchman could do live sans Rage Against the Machine. All three of his solo records are notoriously hit and miss affairs, and when he arrived on stage with a full band it seemed clear that he was going to eschew the more folkish acoustic side of his material for the straight up rock stuff and boy did he deliver. Possessing more stage presence and vitriol than the other two bands on the bill combined, Tom Morello was absolutely sensational. ‘It Begins Tonight’ was the perfect opener and even though he only played six songs, he absolutely blew every other band away. I’ve never seen the Academy lose their shit so hard or as quickly as when he played the opening riff to ‘Sleep Now in the Fire’ and following up with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ was simply unbelievable (the guitar solo in this song has to be seen to be believed and you can check it out right here). The icing on the cake came when he brought out Tim from Rise Against for closer ‘World Wide Rebel Songs’ and together they had the entire crowd singing along to a song that most of them had only heard for the first time tonight. Absolutely and utterly sensational from start to finish, Tom Morello brought it all; the tunes, the stage presence, the RATM song, the cover, the singer from Rise Against and the charisma. Perfect. 10
Not many bands could top what The Nightwatchman just delivered and Rise Against certainly weren’t capable of doing so. Realistically I was expecting a setlist filled with tunes from their latest record but I wasn’t quite expecting them to play so little from their first three records. As I stated in my review of Endgame, Rise Against are now a hard rock band but you really couldn’t tell that to the crowd who turned out to see them tonight. Favouring their latest album as well as their previous record Appeal to Reason the crowd lapped every single second of their performance up and with good reason too; they were tight and despite looking completely bored during the first three songs they soon got into their groove and put on a good show. Opening with ‘Re-Education (Through Labor)’ Rise Against done their best to ensure that most of the setlist was made up of their poppier moments, ‘The Good Left Undone’ and ‘Heaven Knows’ aside. For some reason the band have decided to have lots of long intros to their songs on this tour, which was a little tiresome but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. Of the songs from the new record ‘Help is On the Way’ and ‘Satellite’ didn’t really seem to work tonight, yet ‘Make It Stop (September’s Children)’ and ‘Architects’ translated much better than they do on record and they made the right decision in playing the decent tunes from Endgame. All in all though it’s really the poor setlist that lets them down here tonight; even the good songs from ‘Appeal to Reason’ were conspicuous in their absence, instead rolling out the dreadful ‘Audience of One’ and ‘The Dirt Whispered’ to yawn inducing effect. This was definitely a glimpse of Rise Against at their most radio friendly, and while the crowd seemed to really love it, I just couldn’t. Even if I leave my cynicism aside the setlist could have been so much better. They definitely need a break. 7
