Rage Against The Machine’s Public Service Announcement Rally’s In NYC

Rage Against The Machine Still A Voice For The Broken, Beaten and Unheard

August 9th, 2022 nearly 18 months after the initial announcement of the live return of Los Angeles, California’s Rage Against The Machine. After a global pandemic, a change in presidents and now smack dab in the middle of a recession, Zack De La Rocha, Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk performed the 2nd of 5 shows at the world’s most famous arena Madison Square Garden Tuesday night.

Honestly despite the delay of 2 plus years, this might actually be the perfect time to interject themselves back into the spotlight, arguably this show is more important today then it may have been back in 2020.

Fans entered the Garden from all entrances bright and early to catch the tour opener Run The Jewels. RTJ is the hip-hop super duo composed of New York’s own El-P and Atlanta based Killer Mike. The group released their latest album RTJ4 In 2020.

The duo hit the stage around 8pm and had the NY crowd on their feet for a large majority of the set. EL-P shared his gratitude for the fans and his sheer shock of playing such a legendary arena, to a New Yorker, Madison Square Garden is a big deal, to a NY artist performing at the Garden is a pinnacle moment and you can feel that from the group.

The group performed a 12 song, approximately 45 minute set which included fan favorite tracks like “Ooh La La”. “Close Your Eyes”, “Legend Has It”, and “Stay Gold”.

As Run The Jewels made their way off stage to a standing ovation, you can feel the anticipation all around the arena. There was real tangible excitement in the air for Rage to take the stage.

Shortly after 9pm the lights dimmed, the stage turned red and a “Public Service Announcement” blared over the speakers, The band making their way to the stage first followed by vocalist Zack De La Rocha carried to his seating position for the night. De La Rocha injured his leg/foot night 2 in Chicago and chose to move forward with the tour and spoiler alert him sitting doesn’t ruin the show one bit.

As the intro to “Bombtrack” began De La Rocha took to the mic “Good evening this is a public service announcement and we are Rage Against The Machine from Los Angeles California”. With the screen in the back reading the words “Fear Is Your Only God” From that moment on it was pure chaos and in the best way. Legions of fans began circling and smashing into one another in the GA pit of the arena moving in unity and releasing years of aggression and anxiety.

You can feel the floor moving with the flow of the crowd, the garden felt as if it was actually shaking, a feeling I’ve only ever really experienced at a Rage Against The Machine show. Rage hasn’t missed a beat, their live performance sounds as amazing as ever and their message just as important today as it was back in the 90’s.

The band’s stage setup housed a large screen, oftentimes flickering between band and crowd but at moments used as a tool to display powerful messages. From imagery of riots, poverty, police brutality and subtle subliminal messages like a boy on his knees face to face with a bull or a border agent with a drug sniffing dog before vocalist Zack De La Rocha screams ”Burn, burn, yes, you’re gonna burn”.

The band almost non stop rips through classic tracks like “Bulls on Parade” with De La Rocha almost popping to his feet despite the injury and that theme is apparent during classics like “Testify”, “Vietnow”, “Know Your Enemy” to name a few. Morello shreds and dj’s about on his guitar which has the writing “Arm The Homeless” written on it.

Even now in 2022 Zack speaks these lyrics with such raw passion and conviction. I’ll take a seated De La Rocha over 99% of the vocalist wandering the stage any day because even though he’s hurt, there’s more power to his performance than most acts ever!

Rage continues showing they’re still as relevant now as they were then and they’re still the voice for the broken, beaten and unheard. There wasn’t an empty spot of the arena no matter whether you looked to the floor or to the nosebleeds the crowd was moving and banging their head.

The 90 minute 18 song set was filled with fury, passion, pain and RATM’s trademark sounds. The Los Angeles 4 piece tends to disappear from our lives until the perfect time, last time the band performed was in 2011 in Los Angeles since then the world has provided them enough fuel for the fire to pull them back into the spotlight in 2022.

America under President Trump, the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd which were called out numerous times and even directed at the NYPD for their police shootings and all the others as De La Rocha said “The unknown” coupled with now post pandemic mass shootings and the overturning of Roe V Wade the climate for this band was the perfect storm.

During the pairing of “Freedom” and “Township Rebellion” the screen behind them turned black and displayed messages educating the sold out Garden about Black August regarding they read “Black captivity and enslavement is the DNA that makes up the United States. This continues today in the form of policing and prisons”.

“The US government has systematically destroyed Black liberation organizations and movements like the Black Panther Party, MOVE, and others”.

“Black August commemorates the Black martyrs killed or incarcerated in their collective fight for liberation and abolition”.

“Freedom fighters like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Imam Jamil Al-Amin (Formerly H. Rap Brown) remains incarcerated on false charges”.

“Assata Shakur remains in exile,still on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorist’ list”.

“FREE THEM ALL”

The band led chants of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” which echoed through MSG during the bands final song “Killing In The Name Of”.

By the show’s end and the arena being lit up, thousands of fans stood and applauded what was an unbelievable performance from a band so important to many of our childhoods and music in general. Rage has just as much heart now as they did then, incredibly sounding as if they haven’t been off stage for 11 years. The chemistry is very much alive and well and god we can only hope there will be new music in these disturbing times.

Growing up the mystique of Rage Against The Machine shows felt dangerous, important, more of a rally then a concert and I can happily report that even though the fans are a little older than we were then, we still very much bring the ruckus. I beg you to go see then live if you’re a fan of the band. There is no way you will be disappointed.