Review: Projekt Revolution delivers deafening decibels

By Padraic Duffy, Journal Staff Writer | Monday, April 28, 2003

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RAPID CITY -- The Projekt Revolution Tour arrived at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center on Saturday night and delivered what everyone in the building was paying to see: aggressive, raucous hip-hop and metal played at high decibel levels.

The people got what they came for and considering the diversity of the acts they saw, they may have even received a little more.

From the opening act, a Swedish hard-rock band called Blindside, to the rap-metal fusion of Linkin Park, no eardrum was left unassaulted.

After Blindside loosened up the sell-out crowd, California-bred rapper Xzibit brought his confrontational, in-your-face brand of rhyming to the stage. Unfortunately, his considerable skills as a lyricist were drowned out by too much bass on the sound board. It made for an unintelligible growl that, though easy to nod your head to, was simply impossible to understand.

Everyone definitely understood that he likes to party (he informed the crowd that he could drink more alcohol than anyone in all of Rapid City) and that we should, too. He implored the crowd to light up any and all marijuana they might have - obviously forgetting that he was in South Dakota, not Los Angeles, and that the police presence in and out of the Don Barnett Arena was significant. However, a few brave (or stupid?) fans did manage to smuggle enough contraband past the police searches at the front gate to create a few clouds in the audience.

In breaks between acts, the audience was treated to different performances by the Guerilla Union All-Stars. They consisted of an emcee, disc jockey and a dancer that provided what may have been the most talented performances of the entire evening. The emcee was an improvisational genius, at one point, freestyling entirely about objects people had in their pockets - pens, oranges (who brings oranges to a concert?) and even, um, a feminine product - and the break dancer was one of the most incredible athletes I have ever seen. He flipped around the stage and, at one point, did a head-spin that lasted for half a minute and included a minimum of 20 revolutions.

When Mudvayne took the stage, the G.U.A.S. emcee introduced them as "one of the hardest bands in the world" that was going to make the arena "dark." He wasn't joking.

This band, from Peoria, Ill., is loud. I'll be honest; the "intricacies" of Mudvayne's brand of metal are imperceptible to me. If music consisting of drums, bass and guitar played at ferocious speeds behind a man screaming like a rabid jungle cat is your cup of tea, check these guys out. If not, you might want to skip them. These guys are looking to transport the listener to a dark, aggressive place.

As a friend of mine at the concert said, "If someone told me I had to eat nothing but pit bulls for the next three years and had to kill them with my bare hands, I'd listen to Mudvayne first."

After Mudvayne left the stage, Linkin Park entered an arena that was buzzing to see them. This band has a dedicated following, to say the least. Their debut album, Hybrid Theory, has sold more than 10 million copies, and their third release, Meteora, is currently sixth on the Billboard charts after reaching the No. 1 spot.

Linkin Park, a Southern California-based outfit, is a major player in the rap-metal genre, a style initially popularized by Faith No More's 1991 release, Epic. This formula combines the hard-driving guitar, drums and vocals of metal with turntables and a rapper similar to a band from Omaha that hit it big in the mid-'90s, 311. Like 311, and unlike other rap-metal outfits, Linkin Park uses two vocalists.

In this arrangement, rapper/singer Mike Shinoda and singer Chester Bennington, a Phoenix, Ariz., native and only non-Californian in the band, contrast each other nicely, with Shinoda flowing in and out of Bennington's scream (think a young Ozzy Osbourne crossed with a skater punk.) Like prior acts, there was absolutely no discerning any of the band's lyrics, but that was hardly the point. This wasn't a contemplative crowd. They wanted to body-surf, mosh and scream. This wasn't about lyrical precision but channeling angst, aggression and frustration into music and having it all spew out.

This show accomplished everything it set out to, and to steal a line from the band everyone came to see, in the end, it doesn't even matter if you can't understand anything they sang because they put on a show, made you bounce your head and sonically kicked your butt until your head buzzed like a television test pattern.

For fans of the Projekt Revolution lineup, things couldn't have been any better.

Contact Padraic Duffy at padraic.duffy@rapidcityjournal.com