The Perfect Vodka Ampitheatre was not the place for the musically faint of heart Sunday, as the Prophets of Rage brought their “Make America Rage Again” tour, and two opening acts, through South Florida.
With members of Public Enemy (vocalist Chuck D, turntable artist DJ Lord), Cypress Hill (vocalist B-Real) and Rage Against the Machine (guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk), the sextet played protest anthems from all three groups’ catalogs and beyond for a three-quarter-capacity crowd.
Seemingly formed to oppose the American political system in a presidential election year, the fledgling supergroup haunted the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last July, and continued to wear its disdain on its sleeves.
The Prophets’ official voices may be their two emcees, but their most raging voice perhaps belongs to Commerford. Also a backing vocalist with the sextet, the bassist sang lead as he opened the show with a 30-minute set by his new punk/thrash trio Wakrat, with guitarist Laurent Grangeon and drummer Mathias Wakrat.
“We have a record that comes out on Nov. 8,” Commerford announced — upping the ante on Rage’s CD releases, most during presidential election years through the 1990s — by dropping precisely on Election Day. With titles like “Generation F****d,” “Sober Addiction,” “Knucklehead,” “Pigs in a Blanket” and “Nail in the Snail,” the trio’s aggressive instrumental attack only paled in comparison to some of the bassist’s lyrics and between-song utterances.
After reciting the Lord’s Prayer during a collective trio vamp, Commerford announced, “We did not land on the moon, and a plane did not fly into the Pentagon. There’s no footage of that, because it didn’t happen.”
The aggression decreased when another Southern California act, Awolnation, took the stage for its 45-minute set. Featuring vocalist Aaron Bruno, guitarist Christopher Thorn, keyboardist Kenny Carkeet, bassist Marc Walloch and drummer Isaac Carpenter, the eight-year-old band played songs from its two CD releases, Megalithic Symphony and last year’s Run.
Carkeet’s synthesizers gave the quintet elements of The Cure, and Carpenter’s attack approximated Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl’s drumming, but the group’s set list lapsed into non-creative sameness halfway through. And Bruno’s dancing, twirling, prancing and preening eventually resembled late Blind Melon front man Shannon Hoon.
“I know what you wanna hear,” Bruno said as the crowd lost interest near the end of the set. “I think you wanna hear a f-ing drum solo!” To Carpenter’s credit, it proved to be his group’s highlight.
DJ Lord appeared at 9 p.m. to play a 15-minute set, starting by standing with hand over heart during Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A true performance deejay, he creatively mixed the Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys and Run-DMC with Queen, the White Stripes and Nirvana to build the excitement before the rest of the band appeared.
“Make America rage again,” announced B-Real, wearing a black-and-red Arab headdress, “and we are f-ing enraged!”
Essentially a cover act, Prophets opened with Rage Against the Machine’s explosive gems “Guerrilla Radio” and “Bombtrack.” Wilk’s powerful cadences anchored the proceedings, with Morello’s guitar histrionics and B-Real’s near-mimickry of Rage vocalist Zack De La Rocha providing the fireworks. Along with Commerford (who looked tired from pulling a double), the three Rage musicians’ lock-step musicality stood out all night.
Morello quoted Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” to introduce Public Enemy’s anti-TV anthem “She Watch Channel Zero,” but Chuck D’s buried vocals and frequent use of a megaphone hinted that his voice might be ailing. It proved part of the reason that PE’s recorded material, along with the fact that it features more samples and programming than actual instrumental tracks, proved the weakest of the three parent groups’ catalogs all night.
The Cypress Hill-recorded selections, based slightly more in real instrumentation, fared better. B-Real was indeed a real presence throughout the night, providing an early highlight with the group’s hip-hop classic, “How I Could Just Kill a Man.” “(Rock) Superstar,” with the band’s “Kashmir” feel a la Led Zeppelin, also ignited the crowd before the two emcees played a trio set with DJ Lord.
“Hip-hop is in your face,” said B-Real, “so we’re gonna get in your face.” Chuck D delivered his best moments of the night during the PE gems “Can’t Truss It,” “Bring the Noise” and “Welcome to the Terrordome,” and B-Real crowd-surfed and accepted smoking materials from audience members during Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Membrane.”
With Morello, Commerford and Wilk back, the sextet played a surprising cover of “Like a Stone” by Audioslave, the trio’s pop-tinged 2000s quartet fronted by leather-lunged Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell. Audioslave was never as powerful as the vocalist’s primary band, and shackled the bristling Rage energy of the instrumentalists, but the Prophets nonetheless made this track memorable by allowing the crowd to do a sing-along of the chorus.
The only new track by Prophets of Rage, the anti-political anthem “The Party’s Over,” featured raucous drumming by Wilk, who never let up all night. Still, it was the Rage material that the audience seemed to want to hear the most, and which was delivered with the most sonic boom.
Morello brought new life to electric guitars with his deejay and keyboard mimicry through the 1990s, achieved through his use of toggle switches, pick scratches, wah-wah pedals and volume and tone controls. On Rage’s “Testify,” he soloed with only his guitar cord while manipulating the wah-wah; on “Sleep Now in the Fire” he approximated an electronic theremin as small groups of moshers banged into each other up front.
“Y’all mothers in the pit, get ready to get your cardio on,” B-Real said to introduce Rage’s “Bullet in the Head,” featuring another memorable Morello break. On the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” with Chuck D rapping the lyrics to PE’s epic “Fight the Power,” the guitarist played his instrument on top of his head to reveal a sign on the back stating “Nobody for President.”
Rage’s militaristic protest anthem “Bulls on Parade” could’ve made a fitting ending, but the Prophets had one more bomb track up their sleeves.
“Dangerous times call for dangerous songs,” said B-Real, “and in our minds, this is the most dangerous of them all.” The energetic rapper crowd-surfed again during Rage’s “Killing in the Name” as a “Make America Rage Again” banner lit up the back of the stage.
Rage Against the Machine’s power and political commentary dominated the 1990s, and the instrumental trio of Morello, Commerford and Wilk makes the Prophets as close to the real thing as possible. One can only imagine what this new rap-rock supergroup has in store leading up to Election Day on Nov. 8.