Photos + Review: Rise Against @ The Eastern (Atlanta, GA)

Rise Against (Chicago, IL), LS Dunes (Chicago, IL), Cloud Nothings (Cleveland, OH)
November 4th, 2024
The Eastern in Atlanta, GA

Woof, it’s been a week. Sheesh.

As Fall Out Boy said, what a time to be alive.

What a way to go from one end of the spectrum of intense happiness and hope, to extreme disappointment and despair. I assume all of y’all will know what I’m talking about? I don’t want to elaborate on it a ton, because this post isn’t really about him and what happened and what’s to come. Or at least it maybe it shouldn’t.

But at the same time, it should. So screw it. When it concerns a band like Rise Against, who have been such a politically aware and cognizant band for 25 years now, it would be a disservice to them not acknowledge the election and its results at all.

This past weekend another trip to Atlanta was made, this time around to catch Rise Against on their current tour last Monday, Election Night Eve. They’re a band that I’ve been listening to since 2006 and their “The Sufferer and the Witness” album’s release. However, it took until the pandemic years for them to become one of my favorite bands of all time. They were easily one of my most listened to bands those years. “State of the Union” and it’s album Siren Song of the Counter Culture snuck up on me on, punched me in the face and never let go, and Nowhere Generation was it’s perfect tag team partner for that time.

The energy of the venue was palpable throughout the night. You could tell that the upcoming election and its significance to this show could be felt by a vast majority of the crowd. It came to a head during LS Dune’s set but resolved itself as quickly as it came. Rise Against is pretty overt with where they stand politically, at the very least they stand for equal rights for all people and all races. It will never fail to surprise me when coming across people that pick up on the opposite.

I’ve said it a ton of times, but a big mark of a really good concert is just how fast time seems to pass. Rise Against’s seemed to be done just as it was getting good. They ended their first part of their set with Prayer of the Refugee, including a perfect shred-your-face-off solo by Zach Blair, before they went off for their encore. That was 13 songs in and I was just getting settled to hear 13 more! A band like Rise Against that has so much material now after 25 years of being a band, I would absolutely love it if they did a two hour, two set kind of night sometime. I don’t think it’ll ever happen, unfortunately, and I understand why if they don’t. I guess I’ll just have to keep seeing them at every given opportunity.

Shout out to Atlanta for having a venue like The Eastern. I can confidently say that the Eastern is one of the best venues I been to in the country. A pretty good sized crowd yet it never felt too crowded, and also so many different spots provided great sightlines. Great audio and lighting throughout. And to top it all off an very thoughtful a courteous staff on hand. Well done.

Rise played one of the most well rounded sets I’ve seen. I loved seeing deeper cuts like “Under the Knife” and “Behind Closed Doors” from The Sufferer and the Witness, and the title track from The Black Market. I’m surprised that that song has only just started to be played often, ten years after it’s release.

If it was any other day of the year, I could probably disconnect the band and the music a bit more, but honestly, seeing a Rise Against the night before a presidential election was one of the most perfect events I could experience. While I’m still deeply saddened by the results from Tuesday, and probably will be for a long, long time, I support and stand with Rise against and its members in the fight for equality.