'Nacle Week 1: Rise Against - 10/20 @ Tabernacle
Spent a week seeing show at The Tabernacle, this would be the first one...
There are plenty of bands that are completely off my radar, even though they've been around for a long time. Rise Against would be one of them. When I was told they were coming to the Tabernacle, my first response was to ask who they were opening for. Turned out they were the headliners and that Thrice and Alkaline Trio were opening up for them. Not that I would think either of those bands would be big enough to headline at the Tabernacle, but at least I know them. I was surprised that there was a band apparently big enough to have them as opening acts that I wasn't familiar with at all. Go figure.
I took Rikki with me to the show, but had to wait until she was off from work before we could make it down. We didn't get down there until close to 10PM, so I ended up missing Alkaline Trio, who I was really looking forward to seeing. A bit bummed about that, but as I've seen them before it wasn't that big of a deal. And since they were one of the opening bands, it's not like they were going to play a long time anyway. I'll just have to try and catch them next time. And I wasn't the only one who missed Alkaline Trio, as there wasn't a lot of people at the show to begin with. The Tabernacle holds about 2,500 people and I'd say there was 800 there at most. There were so few people that the balconies were closed off. Looking back, this show would've done better had it been at the Masquerade. Would've made more sense too considering these were all punk bands for the most part. And everyone at the show was pretty much among the punk/goth/Hot Topic shopper community too, along with a surprising number of meatheads. And with the exception of Cliff and Jeremy (neither of whom were among the aforementioned meatheads), didn't run into anyone else at the show.
For my first time experiencing Rise Against, they were pretty good. Definitely along the lines of having songs of protest and empowerment and so forth. The lead singer actually sang most of the time, which I enjoyed. But every now and again, he'd scream the songs, which I didn't care for. He also talked a lot, I mean a LOT, about "community" and being "part of a movement" and blah, blah, blah. But because of the smallish crowd, it seemed that most of his protest songs and commentary just drifted up to the empty rafters and went unheard. Or maybe I just felt it being a tangible metaphor, because if the show was sold out or close to it, then there would actually be a "community" and "a movement" to preach to and would've been something impactful. But maybe that's just me.
But I will say this about the band, they have a huge banner budget. Most bands, especially of the Warped Tour bent, use giant banners as backdrops during their shows. And most of those same bands find one banner sufficient. Rise Against went through three banner changes during their set. Three! Wow, taking this headlining thing seriously aren't we guys? But maybe they've always done that, like I said not too familiar with them.