Sunday 16/09/07 Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill, Against Me! @ Tucson Electric Park, Arizona

This year’s KFMA Fall Ball brings us a diverse line-up of bands that truly reflects the variety of music they play. Fulfilling our need for in-your-face punk rock social commentary is Against Me! They blow us away immediately with ‘Don’t Lose Touch.’ Lead singer Tom Gabel has a gruff, unique vocal quality that sounds as if it’s coming out of the mouth of a giant. Well a giant smile and a giant heart is more like it as he performs ‘From Her Lips To God’s Ears,’ a song about Condoleezza Rice and the state of US foreign relations. Anyone else want to touch that with a fifty foot pole?

Tom shouts “she wants to dance and drink all night!” under a huge rainbow (a real one) as ‘Thrash Unreal’ gets the full audience participation treatment. ‘Sink, Florida, Sink’ has a folk like delivery but that doesn’t discourage crowd surfers who fly through the air anyways, it’s getting way rowdy. They finish their set with a song that proves men don’t really know what its like to be a woman, ‘The Ocean’ where fantasy is exactly that. Ok we’ve found a new favorite band.

Cypress Hill is just plain fun - nothing extra. They perform ‘Insane In the Membrane’ to a willing horde who wholeheartedly sings along. We just can’t keep our bodies still, even security is unconsciously rocking to the beat. Sen Dog shouts “Smoke break!” and low and behold a giant blow-up Buddha holding a huge Pot leaf appears on stage along with billows of smoke and ‘Hits From The Bong’ is delivered in red-eyed style. Cops also gather around behind the stage. Its not real Pot smoke, Gigwise breathed deep just to make sure.

An infectious and lazy beat brings on ‘When The Shit Goes Down.’ Even the mosh pit gets friendly and the audience is digging it completely. It’s now dark and the thunder in the distance sounds ominously close. A tinkling sound is heard and it’s instantly recognized by the cheering horde as ‘Superstar’ gives us more to love about Cypress Hill.