Pop : Politically Correct Consolidated Bores

When a band’s stage patter includes phrases like, “this one is about 400 years of oppression,” you’re usually not in for a rock ‘n’ roll Saturday night.

And while a lot of bands berate their audiences for spending money to go and see them--that’s punk-rock--Consolidated may be the only one that makes its fans feel like jerks for not donating the money to a political cause instead.

A politically correct industrial band from San Francisco, Consolidated rails against meat-eating and homophobia, racism, war and MTV.

At the point in the set where, say, Sammy Hagar says “You guys in L.A. rock, man” the Consolidated singer bounces up to the microphone and says, friendly as can be, “This is fascism.”

Saturday’s performance at Helter Skelter sometimes felt more like a political rally than a rock show, and instead of taking an encore, the trio opened the floor up for political discussion, and members of the audience went up to the microphone to rail some too.

The Consolidated sound is a slightly hip-hop inflected take on the industrial-disco thing--heavily articulated beat-box drums overlaid with mass-media samples and shrieking washes of guitar, the bass pumped loud enough to knock you back a couple of steps. The vocals, though, often involved folkish melodies rather than the usual ogre-style howls of rage, that little touch of populism you might expect from a band at the barricades. Is the band important? Possibly. Is it boring? You bet.