SPIN

Some 60,000 fans crowded Los Angeles' famed Coliseum on Saturday for L.A. Rising, the nine-hour festival headlined and curated by Rage Against the Machine — the band's only scheduled concert this year.

The day was packed with a musically diverse spectrum of agitprop provocateurs, including the George Orwell-channeling Muse, PETA-propping punkers Rise Against, and the generally free-range Ms. Lauryn Hill. Up in the nosebleeds, one fan sparked a joint as he asked his buddy, "How many pounds of weed you think made it in here?" "Hundreds." Pause. "I'm surprised one of the Marleys isn't playing." "Nah man, this is like, get-mad-and-break-stuff revolutionary." — written by Chris Martins

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A Rage Against the Machine concert is still a special thing, in part because even now, no band has managed to outdo the Angeleno agitators on their own terms. No doubt some of the reason for Rage's enduring dominance is that, on paper, the rap-metal-politics triad looks bad -- anyone attempting it would almost certainly be doomed to ham-fisting the endeavor. At this point, the band themselves would be forgiven for sounding like a weak blurt from a bullhorn whose batteries ran out over a decade ago. But that's the other thing that makes a RATM concert special in 2011: They actually sound better now.

The band's set was the greatest thing about L.A. Rising, but the day's best moment came during "Know Your Enemy" from 1992's eponymous debut. Tom Morello wrapped the ferocious track with one of his trademark guitar-as-turntable, whammy-bar freakouts before turning the spotlight over to Zack de la Rocha. The lights went up as the Castro-maned vocalist repeatedly roared a cappella: "All of which are American dreams!"

The view of the Coliseum floor was as heartening as it was terrifying: tens of thousands of faces contorted by their own answering screams, eyes bleary as they shouted down the enemies and injustices they otherwise felt powerless to halt. That the message of this song -- not to mention "People of the Sun," "Testify," and "Killing in the Name" -- felt as fresh as it did when it was written is both a testament to RATM's art and a depressing indictment of our national politics.

If self-importance is a virtue in arena rock (and it is; just ask U2), then Muse are destined to peal falsettos in a choir of angels when their time comes.

To isolate a single moment from the English trio's L.A. Rising performance would be to overlook a hundred points of spangly light equally scale-breaking in terms of pomp and grandiosity. It'd be far too easy to point to their intro, where Matthew Bellamy let his inner opera star shine over reverberating timpani drums and a spooky buildup of synthetic violin, or to describe what happened a mere minute later, when he palmed his sparkly red guitar above his head and pointed at his Captain America shirt while giving that finely honed rock-star grimace that says, in no uncertain terms, "Oh, yeah!"

Then tere were the Chris Martin-channeling bouts on their transparent-topped grand piano, the raw riffage covers of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Led Zeppelin, the nine-cannon smoke salute and the hundreds of colored laser beams that blasted the crowd toward the end, not to mention the songs themselves -- the whirling shredder "Hysteria," the Queenly "Victorious," and the empowered fuck-the-man anthem "Uprising." Sure, it was a lot of posturing, but that was the point.

Backed by an elastic 11-piece ensemble, former Fugee and neo-soul diva Ms. Lauryn Hill (née "Lauryn Hill") delivered a full-bodied and full-throated set from start to finish, but the first few minutes were the most stunning. Her parachute-panted players (really) fired up a noisy, effects-laden dub groove while she strutted to center-stage. After somewhat twitchily delivering orders to the band and the soundman (she'd given birth to her sixth child a week before; frayed nerves are to be expected), she embraced the mike and belted out the opening refrain of "Killing Me Softly."

It seemed like Spinal Tap had sound-checked for the band -- everything was at 11 as they continued their reverbed march through heady riddims, somehow merging the spirit of "Ghost Town" by the Specials with the Fugees' 1996 Roberta Flack remake. And all the while, Hill adroitly bent the original melody to its new surroundings, snaking in and out of a big-band dub that would've made King Tubby relinquish his throne. Which isn't to say it wasn't wholly impressive when she led her troupe through Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," her solo hit "Lost Ones," or a pair of Fugees covers -- "Fu-Gee-La" and "Ready or Not" -- in which she rapped every part.

When the punks from Chicago took the stage, the heat-rankled crowd was more than ready to shed that mounting angst that Immortal Technique and Ms. Lauryn Hill hadn't helped to alleviate. Singer Tim McIlrath, guitarist Zach Blair, and bassist Joe Principe, all fully clad in black, tore around the stage, leaping, high-kicking and thrusting their tongues at the air in the grand punk-rock (or, you know, Maori) tradition. The word "athletic" comes to mind, both for Rise Against's bodily antics and the aggro high-energy shredding the four-piece (drummer Brandon Barnes did his part) applied to songs like opening salvo "Chamber the Cartridge" and mid-set highlight "Satellite."

But the single best moment of their performance came during "Survive," whose sarcastic line "I have never felt so fucking great" took on literal significance when two elated crowd-surfers managed to high-five one another from comfy-looking lounge positions. Otherwise, the mood was heartfelt (melodic) and urgent (hardcore) throughout, with bouts of militancy thrown in for good measure. After all, the band was framed by a massive custom black-and-yellow-striped flag, backed by an impenetrable wall of no-nonsense speaker cabinets, and arrived to the sound of furiously beating helicopter blades.

If Immortal Technique's status as a Harlem-based Afro-Peruvian agitprop backpack-rap revolutionary seems like a lot to swallow, consider yourself aligned with the masses. The early-aughts underground legend had a tough time getting the sweltering midday crowd to see things his way, though not for a lack of trying. In between knotty songs about international politics ("Bush Knocked Down the Towers"), treachery in the music business ("Industrial Revolution"), and fallen comrades (the unreleased "Toast to the Dead"), he lectured at length on topics ranging from Arizona's immigration policy to violence against women to the colorlessness of terrorism in light of the recent Norwegian tragedy.

But it was neither his detailed rhythmic screeds nor his didactic between-song banter (roughly half of the set) that actually won over the audience. It was a resounding chant toward the end of his set that began with, "When I say hip, you say hop," and reached a fevered pitch with, "When I say fuck, you say cops!" The flurry of fists and bouncing hands that accompanied the latter said that Tech had hit a sweet spot with his newfound fans in South L.A. Later, guest Chino XL scored points for a growled-out topical couplet: "I will pull Bill O'Reilly's spine out/Fuck him, fuck Fox News and whoever sold that dope to Amy Winehouse."