Rage Support Group

I'm sure many of you are wondering how Rage Against the Machine went... Let me paint you a picture.

We're standing in Festival Hall, the crowd has swarmed in like a hive of angry hornets. The air is thick with sweat and cheers as the band finally appear on stage. The first riff hits.

As if from nowhere, a dark portal shimmers into existence. We can hear the wails of a million tortured souls and people who don't like puppies. As the portal grows, covering the entire crowd, a light appears from the center, a pinpoint at first but growing, feeding on the darkness we see the fires of hell. A clawed hand emerges from the fires, pulling itself further into our domain - the wailing increases until blood drips from our ears. Satan, the Dark Prince pulls himself free of the fiery gateway, a trail of burning flesh marks his wake as he slowly moves towards our post. Gripped with terror we stand, unable to move as the Fallen One moves towards us, fire burning in his eyes and a dark grin spread across his mouth, his pointed teeth just showing. He arrives at us, still stunned, leans over so that he is just inches from my face and whispers, almost mockingly to me.

"Just kidding."


Despite our fears, it was an extremely quiet event for us, the crowd was amazing in how good they behaved. There was the usual moshing, jumping around and people getting hit by a few stray elbows (and one poor fellow copping a bite to his head while moshing - another copping a head to his teeth), but apart from that I was impressed. To give you an idea of the situation, at one point I saw two guys walking in opposite directions collide, one spilling half of a just poured large beer. I tightened my grip on my kit, expecting to have to go in and treat a punch up, only to see the two guys look at the beer, shrug shoulders and shake hands!

One should never complain about being pleasantly surprised.