One of the reasons I chose to go to USC was because of how close I would be to home. Since I’m from San Diego, it only takes me two to three hours to get back home. Sometimes I’ll drive, but I personally like taking the train because it’s cheap (there’s a 20% student discount!),  there’s an outlet and free Wi-Fi for me to get work done, and the train ride is along the coast so there is a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean to enjoy.

Pacific Coast Train Ride

Pacific Coast

Not only is being close to home super convenient when I need to restock on items (my parent’s always take me shopping and this time I was able to snag a Halloween costume too!), but going home is also a great way for me to de-stress after a tough week of midterms and labs. Coming off one of those tough weeks, I was super excited to go home this weekend and celebrate my dad’s birthday. My dad’s birthday is actually in July, but since I was spending my summer in Seattle I couldn’t actually enjoy it with him. So instead I bought him concert tickets!

Personally, I find my parent’s to be cool, and I love hanging out with them. I especially love hanging with my Dad as he has an AMAZING music taste. He’s a huge old school hip hop head, but loves a diverse mix of alt. rock, r&b, and pop. So naturally I bought tickets for us to see Prophets of Rage. Prophets of Rage is a super group consisting of Chuck D of Public Enemy, B Real of Cypress Hill, and most of the Rage Against the Machine band including one of the greatest guitarists alive and living guitar hero legend Tom Morello. My Dad was super pumped as Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy are two of his favorite groups. He even looked up the set list months in advanced so he could know exactly what the group was going to play.

We got to the concert pretty early (it’s been awhile since my Dad has been to a concert, and he was pretty eager to get there) which gave us some time to grab snacks, buy merchandise, and find our seats.  I’d like to add that we had pretty fantastic seats right in the center section about 5 rows from the front.

The opening band started right on time, and things got a little weird. It was a hard core rock band named WakRat whose lead singer is actually the bassist for Rage. The lead singer started telling us how we never actually made it to the moon, and that the government is lying to us. It was a weird opening set and not many people were there yet, but by the time AWOLNATION took the stage the crowd had filled in and the energy definitely went up. Now, I hadn’t heard an AWOLNATION song since Sail in high school, but man was I impressed. The lead singer had a ton of energy, talented vocal range, and really got the crowd moving.

By the time Prophets of Rage hit the stage, my dad and I were super excited. The set consisted of a dope DJ mix from DJ Lord, and a mixture of Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, and Cypress Hill songs. There was even a Beastie Boys’s song thrown in there! I didn’t know all the songs, but my Dad sure did and he was loving it which was enough for me

 

Because I will not be able to do this concert justice in words, below are some videos and pictures from last night.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

While the concert was great, it made my night when my Dad said that it was the best birthday gift he’s ever gotten. And to top it off, my Dad made me homemade french toast the next morning! Nothing like a home cooked meal.

Breakfast for being an awesome daughter

Breakfast for being an awesome daughter

[author title=”Author” author_id=””] href="#" data-color-override="false" data-hover-color-override="false" data-hover-text-color-override="#fff">Button Text