"To be quite honest, Ill be the first to admit that I really should be the last person to write a critique on ROTE, primarily based on the simple fact that I am a drifting fan of metal music. On my own admission, Im a man of mellower sounds. Thats also simply a fact among others, such as my near clueless nature in most music past the year 2000. And over that fact, Ive also never seen as many of their concerts as many other ROTE fans have.
But maybe thats whatll make this scant analysis work out after all, my total lack of subjectivity. I can neither tear them down, nor build them as sons of Music God out of differing or similar loyalties. I can only judge ROTE on the reality at hand.
And the reality at hand is simply that there was a slight air of promise in the band that was ROTE. Though to the untrained ear such as mine, ROTEs music came at you like a flying wall of sounds. But it came usually with a distinct feel. There was always a sense of gradual build-up to a number of their songs, lending to a sensation similar to that of the first few seconds of a riot where everyone just realizes whos on what side before the first brick is thrown. Eventually, of course, that brick is thrown, and as it sails through the air, everyone waits. Everyone watches. And when it lands, everyone explodes into a tornado of socially repressed aggression. That seems the proper means to describe the misty weight that befalls an audience in the first few seconds of a ROTE concert, at least from my perspective. The lights dim. The guitar begins a rhythm, and upon first scream the crowd explodes like a lit match in a room with a gas leak. ROTE was a band that had such a way with its crowd that they were, for lack of a better term, an ignition.
Reminiscing on that, I remember the concert I saw ROTE perform at Tecumseh Parks Bandshell, in the late summer of 2005. I had seen numerous bands go on and off, with only slight banters between performers and their randomly placed friends within the audience. They gave off shouts of approval and support. But overall, the crowd maintained a placid calm similar to that of lake water.
It wasnt until ROTE approached the stage did I see the crowd actually come alive. The atmosphere changed. People were moving. If youve ever seen one of those Animal Planet documentaries where the crocodile just sneaks up on a baby antelope, waits for the perfect moment, and then snags the little fucker by the face, then thats exactly how you should imagine how the crowd was altered. The placid lake water of fans dressed in black became a roiling current of youths obsession with indestructibility, and total disregard for all things practical, safe, and sane. By the time the band had hit Constructive Solutions, members of the audience were already lined up on the stage erratically banging their heads to the music, some diving off into the crowd, while others collided into each other in mosh pits in the rising clouds of dirt. There was a visceral essence in the air, and the only source could only be logically pointed towards the band.
And in that sense, ROTE does give the people what they promise. I once read on their official website the explanation to the name of Random Organized Thought Energy, and how it was related to Robert Monroes theory of Related Organized Thought Energy, which is basically the transference of energy from one soul to another. Though the replacement of Related with the word Random seems to imply the differing individuals within the band, the rest of Monroes idea of transference remains intact. Initially after reading this I wrote it off as transcendental, existentialist, philosophy class jargon. Ill honestly admit I thought it was the symptoms of a band hyping itself up. But after the clearly musical transference of sheer, untamed insanity I saw at The Bandshell, I stand humbly corrected."
- Aaron Tangkengko (Carlton University Student)
