About 7000 protesters and fans are hopping around to the music in the sweltering LA dusk. The Protest Pit is nothing more than a portion of the Staples Center parking lot fortified by a 12-foot chain link fences reinforced with concrete and steel cables. Sweltering and humid. The blacktop is hot to the touch from the sun or the city's proximity to hell, or both. This is riot weather.
Rage concludes their set with a fiery number from their previous album.
We came for mayhem, and it found us within two hours of parking the car. Rage left the stage and attention turned to the fence separating the protesters from the Staples center. About 20 black-clad anarchists were in full swing, throwing water bottles, protest signs, hunks of concrete and anything else that could make it over the fence. The Anarchists were well equipped. When the Anarchists got too rowdy, the LAPD responded with volleys of pepper spray pellets fired from modified paintball guns.