Holy baby-faced Zack de la Rocha!
Some of The Pit staff is about to see Rage Against the Machine on their current reunion tour, and in celebration of that day coming soon, we went down another YouTube rabbit hole looking for cool RATM live videos.
And this one is extra cool, because there’s a few things going on here.
First off, this took place on March 29, 1992- a full 8 months or so before the band’s instant classic first album dropped.
Every band obviously starts somewhere, but it’s always fascinating to see an arena-level band’s humble beginnings.
And in this case, those humble beginnings were playing to a room of about 20 people in a record store called Zed Records.
One other cool fun fact here is that Zack had only recently written the lyrics to ‘Settle For Nothing’, so he didn’t yet have them memorized and had to read off a sheet during the show.
Courtesy of YouTube channel bbp2k, here’s the timestamps of the full set if you want to jump around.
0:44 - Bombtrack 5:10 - Darkness of Greed 9:08 - Take The Power Back 14:57 - Bullet In Your Head 20:57 - Settle For Nothing (Zack reads from a sheet because he "just wrote the lyrics”) 25:25 - Killing in the Name (Zack's mic breaks and the crowd helps him sing it) 31:20 - Talking between RATM ("Are we still in D?") as record store employees try to fix audio issues 34:04 - Tom solos for 30 seconds during audio check
36:28 - Know Your Enemy (Zack's mic is still not working) 40:30 - More audio checks (Zack: Did anybody hear me?) 41:56 - Freedom 47:30 - Tom trips over the drums
Watch one of Rage Against the Machine’s first shows:
2022 Rage Against the Machine tour dates:
7/11 – Chicago, IL – United Center
7/12 – Chicago, IL – United Center
7/15 – Ottawa, ON – Ottawa Bluesfest
7/16 – Quebec City, QC – Festival d’ete de Quebec
7/19 – Hamilton, ON – FirstOntario Centre
7/21 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
7/23 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
7/25 – Buffalo, NY – KeyBank Center
7/27 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
7/29 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena
7/31 – Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
8/02 – Washington DC – Capital One Arena
8/3 – Washington DC – Capital One Arena
8/8 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
8/9 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
8/11 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
8/12 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
8/14 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden2023 Rage Against the Machine tour dates:
2/22 – Las Cruces, NM – Pan American Center
2/24 – El Paso, TX – Don Haskins Center
2/26 – Glendale, AZ – Gila River Arena
2/28 – Glendale, AZ – Gila River Arena
3/3 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Arena
3/5 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Arena
3/7 – Portland, OR – Moda Center
3/9 – Tacoma, WA – Tacoma Dome
3/11 – Vancouver, BC – Pacific Coliseum
3/13 – Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Saddledome
3/15 – Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place
3/17 – Winnipeg, MB – Canada Life Centre
3/19 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Center
3/20 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Center
3/22 – Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford Premiere Center
3/28 – Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
3/30 – St. Louis, MO – Enterprise Center
4/1 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
4/2 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
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