THE DAMAGE IS DONE

The Features
“God Save Rock & Roll”
Live @ Blue Cat’s
March 8th, 2003

OTHER VERSIONS

The Features
“God Save Rock & Roll”
Live @ Lipscomb University
October 18th, 2001

The version of “God Save” that was caught and caged here in MP3 form is from a soundboard recording from my first ever Features concert. The guitar is way low in the mix, yeah, but oh man do you get to hear those keyboards. And the bass! All to often live mixes favored guitar over the other two, so it’s pretty awesome to hear Roger and Parrish up front on this track for once.

OTHER VERSIONS

The Features
“God Save Rock & Roll”
Live @ Blue Cat’s
August 30th, 2002

This song is basically the Features’ summer blockbuster. 

OTHER VERSIONS

The Features
“God Save Rock & Roll”
Live @ 12th & Porter
November 8th, 2003

This version of “God Save Rock & Roll” features the only change I think the song has gone through. Prior to this version, “God Save” had a musical breakdown where all the other instruments fell away leaving only Matt’s guitar riff before the solo. This has been removed (the second chorus now goes straight into the solo) and replaced with a tension-building measure of aggressive strumming and pounding right after the first chorus and before the second verse. I actually like both of these bits in the song and wish they could all just play nice and live in the same tune, but that isn’t meant to be. If I had to pick, I’d rather have the tense rave-up before the second verse than the lone guitar bit before the solo. This is also the only time that “God Save” transitioned directly into “The Way It’s Meant To Be.”

OTHER VERSIONS:
Live @ 12th & Porter (June 21st, 2002)

The Features
“God Save Rock & Roll”
Live @ 12th & Porter
June 21st, 2002

As the landscape of alternative music was being mutated to fit the new millennium by thousands of dirty indie-hippies in Manchester, Tennessee, the Features were doing it honest sixty-five miles Northwest.

The opening of this track actually brought tears to my eyes when I heard it first. Yes, the opening speech delivered by someone completely unknown to me pretty much sums up everything I feel for them and my long fandom of them. Yes, in the minds of us Features fans, that little Bonnaroo festival (who was having the first day of it’s first festival the same night as this concert) was deprived of it’s main act. Fans who know when to clap during “See You Through” and own three copies of The Beginning EP are “those in the know.” They know that blog buzz, major label deals, MTV Moonmen, Hot Topic t-shirts and actress girlfriends mean nothing when compared to music so honest and real, that it completely embodies everything that rock and roll was created to be. When the mystery announcer says “ladies and gentlemen, the greatest band on Earth, The Features,” it is sincerely the honest truth, void of any hype and hyperbole.

And then “God Save Rock & Roll” starts, the absolute most perfect song to follow that statement. A song about sticking to your guns, following what you believe is right all for the sake of producing pure rock and roll, if the Features had a theme song, this would be it. “It’s the music not the money that matters anyway.” I also can’t think of a song that better gives all four members of the band ample opportunity to completely cut loose. This is the rockingest Features song.

Like I stated earlier, this comes from a show that took place at the same time as the opening hackeysack-kicks of Bonnaroo. “God Save” debuted sometime in 2001, I think, and became one of the band’s big anthems. It was mostly used as either an opening or even moreso as a closer. It was played heavily and regularly until May 2004, when it disappeared until it resurfaced for a brief time in late 2005. The song hasn’t come back since, which is sad as it is one of the band’s defining songs.