2008 Woodie Awards
VoodooFest 2007 draws crowd of 100,000
Mallory Wilkens
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Rage Against the Machine, broken up for seven years now, is back together for a few shows this year in the United States. They began their comeback in California at the Coachella Music Festival, and finally, after a few more shows, made their way to New Orleans' VooDoo Fest. The band was rumored to not have shown up to the festival. According to The Times-Picayune, "the four members of the band arrived separately and stayed in different trailers." Thankfully, the band maintained their professionalism and put on a show for their dedicated fans.
Frontman Zack De La Rocha really got the crowd going when he gave a short speech about the neglect the U.S. government has shown to the citizens of New Orleans, post-Katrina. After giving his speech, in true De La Rocha's leftist fashion, he jumped into the sea of fans and crowd-surfed his way back to the stage to finish off the set.
RATM was thanked by a roaring crowd, who held up so many lighters that it looked like one single flame burning throughout the encore. The band came back for an amazing performance of "Killing in the Name."
RATM was not the only band playing a come-back show. Smashing Pumpkins returned with a new album this year: "Zeitgeist." It is the bands first album since 1999. However, not all the original members of Smashing Pumpkins returned. Jeff Schroeder, Ginger Reyes and Lisa Harriton became the band's new second guitarists, bass and keyboard player, respectively.
Smashing Pumpkins headlined Saturday night's show. They, along with RATM, also had a few words to say about the city of New Orleans and the aftermath of Katrina. They dedicated their song "1979" to the city. They were not the only band this weekend to dedicate songs to the city.
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, who played Saturday afternoon, sang their song "Black Rain" in remembrance of Katrina victims.
They also had a new album released this year called "Lifeline."
Sunday's shows brought in the high school crowd with such bands as Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes and Cute Is What We Aim For. Although, Cute Is What We Aim For canceled their 11 a.m. show, Gym Class Heroes kicked off the day at the VooDoo stage instead. They were not very impressive, but the young crowd did not seem to mind. However, when Fall Out Boy came to the stage the crowd was much more pleased and entertained.
The Black Crowes played an impressive set as the sun set on New Orleans the last day of the festival. Lead guitarist Rich Robinson walked on the stage with crutches and a hurt foot. He sat down to play the show and was still amazing.
Wilco ended the festival that night with a great set mixed with songs from their new album and also a lot of popular songs from their old albums like "Handshake Drugs" and "Hummingbird."
This was VooDoo Fest's ninth year and had crowds estimated over 100,000. The first day of the festival was a little muddy, but for the overall weekend, the weather conditions were great as were the bands that played.
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