Last week was a week full of music for me, attending two concerts on top of my normal music listening. On Thursday I attended my school concert which featured Third Eye Blind and Lupe Fiasco and on Friday I attended The Endgame Tour, featuring Rise Against, Bad Religion and Four Year Strong, at the Boston House of Blues. And although both of these concerts were amazing, only one can inspire my song of the week. My song of the week selection comes from the Endgame tour, which far surpassed my expectations, becoming one of my favorite concerts I have been to so far (I will post the concert reviews for both concerts as well as my long-overdue review for the Game Changers tour hopefully all this week). As far as the actual song of the week is concerned, I will be choosing headliner, Rise Against's, current single "Help Is On The Way."
Lyrically, "Help Is On The Way" is similar to many Rise Against songs, displaying a strong social-political message but where this song differs is the content of this message. The songs lyrics depict a family in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. Lead singer, Tim McIlrath's, speaks of how the family is hoping to be saved from the tragedy, but it seemingly never comes. The song is lead by a great guitar riff by guitarist, Zach Blair, and is held together by the great rhythmic works of bassist, Joe Principe, and drummer, Brandon Barnes. One of my favorite moments in this song is in the "breakdown" section, where McIlrath screams "Right Here! Right Here!" because it helps add a lot of raw emotion to the song.
Rise Against is definitely one of the best punk bands of their generation, contributing not only great music but also strong messages that I feel music needs more of. They were extremely great live and made it a point to point our their beliefs of supporting troops and animal rights, which I thought was awesome. This world definitely needs more bands like Rise Against, and I will always support them musically. Posted below is the video for Rise Against's "Help Is On The Way." Let me know what you think of the song and the band in general.
Rise Against-"Help Is On The Way"
I do love this song, but i would have to say one of my new favorites from them is Make It Stop (September's Children). I mostly like that song so much because I feel as if the lyrics are so great and it sadly speaks to a real and terrible problem. I know i'm a little off book talking about another song other than the one you mentioned, but whatever! Its a problem that I feel more strongly about anyways.
ReplyDeleteNo thats totally acceptable Luke. To be honest, it isn't my favorite song either, but I feel that the lyrics and the video have a really great message so thats why I chose it. My favoirte song is eithe Architects or Satellite.
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