Show Review: Rise Against's Endgame Tour with Bad Religion and Four Year Strong at Terminal 5, NYC

Spring has finally sprung along the East Coast, where snow delayed the budding and blooming of the trees and flowers until after April Fools' Day. The bad weather broke, and it was just in time for the Mike and Tom Awesome show to trek up to New York City (you know, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of) to see Rise Against's spring 2011 tour, supporting the release of their wonderful new album Endgame. Always the type to put on a good show from start to finish, Rise Against hand-selected Bad Religion to be the direct support for the entire tour, a sort of "full-circle" move considering Rise Against opened for Bad Religion at Terminal 5 just a few short years ago. They also enlisted Four Year Strong to open up the show. Based on how the show went on Saturday night, it seems Rise Against haven't made a wrong decision yet in 2011.

Album Review: Rise Against- Endgame (2011)

Complacency in today's music industry has become far too common, with far too many perfect examples: Lady GaGa's "Born this Way" is a Madonna rip-off; You can't listen to a Ke$ha song and tell whether it was on Animal or Cannibal; And then there's the whole over-saturated heap of junk that Nickelback loosely call a "career." The point is, when success is achieved, its really, really easy to get comfortable with where you are. Rise Against may have fallen victim to that horrendous disease, as Appeal to Reason was viewed by fans to be their least-inspired work. Sure, songs like "Savior" and "Long Forgotten Sons" were standouts that entered the band's already bolstered plethora of quality tracks, but the key criticism of Appeal was that the band was trying too hard to make a statement against the world. Now, enter Endgame: the return to form everyone should have seen coming.