Yesterday I revisited my youth, in some sense anyway, at the Rock The Bells concert at Randall's Island. I was specifically there to see Wu Tang, but there were many other acts, most notably Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Public Enemy with guest DJ Rakim, The Roots, Cypress Hill (who are always fun in concert but not particularly my favorite) and Rage Against the Machine, which seemed to attract 90 percent of the people who came to the festival. I hadn't been to Randall's Island for a show since the Tibet Freedom Concert in 1997, headlined by the Beastie Boys and (in an ironic coincidence) Rage themselves. Wu Tang was awesome, totally on point with every verse, thanks in large part to the incredible energy of Method Man. Although, they seemed slightly irritated that they weren't receiving as much energy from the crowd as they should have. I guess no one warned them that these were not mostly hip hop fans in the audience, but Rage fans. I think it was a shame, though. They deserved a lot more of a response. Mos Def and Talib Kweli also put on an amazing show, as did the Roots, although I thought their set selection could have been better. Flavor Flav was his usual ridiculous self.

But the real surprise of the night was the unbelievably huge crowd that gathered specifically to see Rage. They've had a cult like following since the release of their self-titled album in 1992, but I had no idea that they could still attract such a crowd. I felt like an old fart as I looked around to see many kids who were probably still in diapers when that album was released and who had probably first heard Evil Empire ten years after it was released in 1996. I also felt old when I surrendered my front row standing spots right after Wu was finished. I could already see by the large numbers of wasted muscle bound guys that the front row was not a good idea for Rage. Plus I had bad memories of being slammed in the head by crowd surfers at more then one Rage show in the past. Our hilltop view, which we got to by sneaking under a fence, was just fine thank you, even after a swarm of teenagers saw our spot and decided to come invade it.

All in all, it was a good show. But I must say, it lacked the real old school hip-hop crowd that makes events like this so much better. As much as it was nice to reminisce about being 16 by seeing Rage, and as good as they still are..even though all of their shows since '96 are exactly the same, they could have been left off the bill. I would've rather seen NAS, who apparently was only scheduled for West Coast performances.