The anger came out in force yesterday at the Denver Coliseum at a free concert sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against War. Headlining the event was Rage Against the Machine, a band whose name does double duty as an order. The concert began at 11:00 in the morning, and featured State Radio, The Coup and the Flobots as opening acts. In between sets, Iraq Veterans Against the War were introduced to the crowd and Jello Biafra (formerly of the Dead Kennedys, who he described as being all-but Republicans) was the event's MC. Ron Kovic of Born on the Fourth of July fame also made an appearance.

While it can't be denied that the frenzied crowd was there for the music, the intention of the event was to lay the ground for a protest march from the Coliseum to the Pepsi Center. In between The Coup and Flobots, the attendees were trained in how to march peacefully. With one person on stage playing cop (and booed), the organizers showed how the marchers that were willing to get arrested should act in the event that the march was shut down. In the event that happened, a veteran would play taps, which would be the signal for marchers so inclined to sit and await their arrest. The rest of the marchers would then follow folks bearing banners and vacate the disputed premises.

Nonviolence was stressed to the degree that attendees were asked to wrap their arms around anyone about to get violent. And this stress on nonviolence felt pretty warranted, considering the frenzy that Rage Against the Machine was able to create in the crowd. Once they hit the stage, the floor of the coliseum erupted, and remained an undulating mass of individuals jumping up and down, fists in the air. Following an encore capped off by Rage and the crowd yelling "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" (from "Killing in the Name"), the crowd streamed out. Some got in their cars and drove away. Others started marching.

As we walked from the Coliseum, the marchers were kept on one side of the street, with the other half reserved for police on bicycles, motorcycles and in vans. March organizers made sure that the protesters stayed on their side and didn't impede the police's progress.

The first half of the 3.3 miles from the Coliseum wound through a pretty desolate stretch of Denver, whose primary businesses were auto repair and parts shops. As we walked by with banners flung, stereo in a shopping cart pumping out NWA's "F*ck the Police," and chants reverberating through the crowd, employees stood outside to watch. Some of them held up their grease-black hands in a peace sign. Others opened their doors to protestors to get much-needed water. One woman came out of her house with a garden hose to spray and cool down appreciative marchers. At one point, Latino workers came out of their shops with signs and banners advocating open immigration, which was greeted by sympathy chants from the marchers (in Spanish).

The only heckler I saw was a large topless man waving a McCain t-shirt from his balcony. Marchers responded with shouts of "Put on your shirt" and "Jump!"

Crowds were larger as the march hit downtown, and our escort of cops on bicycles and motorcycles was supplemented by cops in riot gear. Some holding three- or four-foot long batons over an inch in diameter, others holding machine guns with what I assume (and hope) had plastic bullets. Still others had what I guess were tear gas guns, with a barrel the diameter of an aerosol can. And yes, there were also police with video cameras at various spots along the route (a detail certainly not lost on the marchers who hid their faces with bandannas and masks). As the concentration of police in riot gear increased the marchers broke into the Darth Vader and Stormtroopers' theme music from Star Wars.

And how big was this protest? Depends who you ask. Ten thousand according to Iraq Veterans Against War. The Denver Post describes "as many as 3,500" and leads with its article describing "hundreds of marchers." The AP estimates "generally around 2,000."

What it meant visually was between two and three blocks of protestors (when they were tightly packed) on one side of the street, with more loosely spaced police in the other lane. Finally -- after walking past vans filled with riot squad shields as the march neared its end -- the crowd arrived at the barrier of the Pepsi Center to present a letter from Iraq Veterans Against War to Democratic and Obama campaign officials. The events that transpired then can be read about at the Iraq Veterans Against War web site.

This account was written by Bobble, whose previous post on the geography of the DNC and its implications can be read here.