Rage Against the Machine's reunion led me to find out about Rock the Bells, a traveling hip hop music festival. Rage headlined the tour this year, and by all accounts the rest of the lineup looked really cool, so I had to check it out.

Rock the Bells San Francisco was in McCovey Cove parking lot, a parking lot for the Giants' AT&T Park. The first thing I noticed about the festival was the difference between holding it in an asphalt paved lot and the nice polo fields at Coachella. I guess I was taking the grass for granted in April. The huge upside to the show was that it was cool outside, so I didn't have to deal with the scorching Coachella temperatures.

I got to there early enough to catch the second acts of the day. I started with Sage Francis.

I heard a lot of good things about Sage Francis over the years and definitely wanted to check him out at the "Paid Dues" stage, a stage independent hip hop artists. His performance ended up being kind of disappointing, though. His flow wasn't great and neither was the show in general, so I left after just a couple songs.

I went to the main stage to get a good spot for Talib Kweli.

I hadn't heard any of his music before the show, but wanted to check him out for two reasons. First, he was recently mentioned in this article as one of the hip hop artists dropping Barack Obama into their lyrics. More importantly, though, he was opening for Mos Def, and I really wated a good spot for Mos Def. What I liked best about his show was that Mos Def came out and rapped with Talib Kweli for a couple songs and their sets faded into each other. Usually the acts have a large break between each other, but they kept it going without stopping.

The mighty, mighty Mos Def finally got to his own set, which was really solid. Included in the set was "Close Edge," which is one of my favorite songs of his. He also played some stuff from his new album, which sounded pretty promising.

After the long Talib Kweili and Mos Def sets, I went to eat lunch by the Paid Dues stage. While I was waiting for Blackalicious, I started listening to The Coup, a Bay Area hip hop funk band. It was clear that they draw some influence from 70s funk and modern funk rock groups like Red Hot Chili Peppers. I really liked them and will definitely check out more of their stuff.

During my first year of college in Colorado, my friends got me listening to Blackalicious, an independent hip hop group that's also out of the Bay Area. Blackalicious is led by Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel. Gift of Gab is a really talented rapper. Seeing him and his crew work was pretty awesome. At the end of the set, Gift of Gab brought out supplemental talent from Quantum Projects, his Bay Area hip hop collaborative.

The next act I wanted to see was Cypress Hill, not because I'm a huge fan of their music, but because they're kind of an institution. Henry Rollins said that Cypress Hill puts on an awesome show, and most anything Henry says is worth considering. When they came on, Cypress Hill inflated a giant Buddha for their set. It was never clear exactly why, but it was cool.

I have to admit, I somehow missed the whole Wu-Tang thing. I don't know where I was when everybody got into them, but I was definitely somewhere else. So, they also fell into the category of being an institution, so I at least wanted to see them. The show was cool, but I wasn't familiar with a lot of the set. They memorialized ODB a lot.

Finally Rage Against the Machine came up. At Coachella, I wrote about how I got jammed in the crowd at the Rage show, and it was even worse at Rock the Bells. After Wu-Tang, I got pushed up 15 feet away from the stage -- insanely close. Once Rage came on, we were packed so tight that I literally couldn't move my arms. It got unbearable after a while, so I eventually gave up and followed a huge guy who was slowly bulldozing his way out.

I fell back to an open spot near a barricade, which gave me some decent breathing room and a chance to take some pictures. Their set and show was exactly the same as it was at Coachella, which I kind of expected. That said, I'm not going to write any more about it. See the Coachella post for context.