Last night Clark Street was filled with Cub fans hurriedly rushing toward Wrigley Field. People were peddling the Lovable Losers’ merchandise on every quarter block, and a herd of underage punks, decked out with safety-pinned patches and technicolor hair, marched against the crowd toward the Metro to witness the Punkvoter Tour. The tour is a vehicle for broadening punk kids’ political awareness, meant to promote open-mindedness and register youngsters to vote. But open minds remained as elusive as ever and a bitter atmosphere tainted what should have been a jubilant call to tattooed arms.
The show boasted a full roster, including Plea For Peace president and acoustic rocker Mike Park, the A.K.A.’s, Jade Tree’s spazzy Strike Anywhere, the somber ex-emo Midtown, Tom Morello as the Nightwatchman and political punkers Anti-Flag.
But previous nights’ gigs tainted the show’s atmosphere. On earlier dates, fans of the mohawked punk rockers of Anti-Flag booed and heckled co-headliner Midtown until the band basically gave up their prime time slot and began playing early in the set, before most of the gig’s patrons even showed up.
Throughout the all-ages show, rowdy teens were continually being kicked out of the venue as fights and heckling occurred all night.
An inherent problem with the music exhibited our generation’s lack of comfort when dealing with a political agenda. Many bands aren’t used to dealing with specifics when it comes to politics, and solid rally-cry information was replaced by vague angst and general disenchantment. The previous alternative era was curiously devoid of serious heft, at least on the radio waves that many of these Chicago kids grew up with. It was also hard to ignore the ominous blue glow of Clear Channel-owned Q-101’s neon sign as it transformed the crowd into pale gray zombie mosh-clones.
The fierce attack of Strike Anywhere and Anti-Flag became jumbled and confused, even within itself. The two groups’ military anthem song structures and war torn graphics of soldiers and riot police lost meaning within a flurry of peace signs. It’s impossible to vote peacefully with a brick in hand, but these contradicting messages were thrown to the crowd with an almost reckless abandon as the bands’ fear of slowing down the set gave way to an ultimately disappointing amount of clear-headed commentary. If any of the kids in the pit were looking for enlightenment or even a half-rate lecture, they were inevitably going to leave empty handed. When Anti-Flag bassist and co-vocalist Chris No. 2 did discuss politics, his speech functions usually gave way to convulsive shouting.
The tour’s largest name, Audioslave and ex-Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, was probably the show’s weakest link. Posing as a half-rate Johnny Cash and unabashedly basking in the self-righteousness that inevitably comes with bestowing upon yourself a name like “The Nightwatchman” (even dropping a line like “The Nightwatchman giveth / And he taketh away,” in “Maximum Firepower”), Morello sounded like a high schooler lost in a Howard Zinn theme park. His baffling choice to substitute his usually razor sharp guitar work for the dull drone of a classical guitar (that he seemed clumsy with at best, I was surprised at how frequently this “guitar god” fell off his own beat and faltered around the frets like a newcomer to the instrument) drained the room of energy. He quickly became a walking anachronism as he belted out thick-voiced, country folk ballads about remote events and people, including the Mexican War, the Black Panther Party and union picket lines (it was unintentionally humorous to see Morello ask of his mostly 11 to 17-year-old crowd, “How many of you are part of a union?”). Those in the crowd who were old enough to be part of a union were ducking out, getting their hands stamped and furiously trying to track down a beer in the frothy Cubs commotion outside. Those that stayed for his performance grew bored quickly and the din of high school gossip frequently overpowered the softer pieces. It was a case of not knowing (or probably more accurately, not really caring) what the audience wanted. I’m all for denying conventions, unless denying conventions results in a suckfest of flaccid noise.
A few weeks ago Morello discussed his performance with Billboard/Reuters saying, “I think it will be one of the most spirited and committed and emphatic performances that you are ever going to see. It is music that cuts to the core of people’s lives.” Unfortunately for Morello, his own mother’s quick cameo at the show in which she gave the advice “Fuck Bush” to a clamor of applause came off as more genuine and more entertaining than his entire parade of tired posing.
The night’s most inspiring moment came when most of the gig’s musicians snuck onstage and performed Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” in its entirety. Prior to the romp, the fleeting urges to go out and vote momentarily sounded like what the show was supposed to be about, getting information into the hands of punk rock fans.
