Full Show Friday: Rage Against The Machine 8/17/96 Roseland Ballroom NYC

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Rage Against The Machine!

For December RtBE is having a special focus with our Full Show Friday's. This month we will showcase live shows, that we were at and also were huge influences on our musical tastes. We will also be trying to get some outside perspectives when we can. This will be a fun and personal month for us, hope you enjoy.   

It was an extremely hot summer night in the big city on August 17th in the year 1996. We had just finished our Freshman year at NYU and had finished our summer job when this killer show was rolling into town. With a huge posse of friends together, we got tickets and we got excited...RATM had just released their second album and were on tour for Evil Empire.

It was the bands high-point, they could tour on older favorites while promoting excellent songs. Having never seen them before we were very pumped to check them out having been a fan of Zack de la Rocha since his Inside Out days (Check out No Spiritual Surrender now!) and were curious how the band would be live.

Before they took the stage Public Enemy was playing over the PA and our circle of people (numbering about 12 or 16) were getting juiced up on the GA floor. There was discussion that once the band came out we would create our own mini pit on the right side of the stage. That sounded great until....

      

The first notes of "Killing In The Name Of" and I was off like a bandit. The whole corwd was pulsating, there wasn't a pit, the whole front half of Roseland from the far left to tright became utter chaos and it was fucking great. Aggression was every where but there was also actual concern for those who fell down or were hurt; I have been in large scale brutal pits (Pantera comes to mind) and at times there are people just looking for fights, not this time. 

The band fed off of it and played a dynamite set, they sounded invigorated and de la Rocha's pipes were spot on. Screams andwails were on point so were his rhymes and the bands riffing, we were active all night (and pop up crowd surfering in that video) probably losing a few pounds through pure sweat. Walking out post show my shirt was soaked and a size bigger from being grabbed and pulled, and reengaging with our crew was fantastic. One of that Crew shares his thoughts, here is Ed with his memory of the night.

I remember we all met at Pluck U before the show and devoured all of the free food Guzman was giving us. This ended up causing Eisenberg to take a massive shit in the bathroom at Roseland and there were no doors and the water was turned off in the sinks so everyone would have to pay for bottled water. I kept running and kicking John while he was on the toilet. Good times 

I can only compare the atmosphere of Roseland pre-show as to being in a prison yard before a riot When they opened up with "killing in the name of", it was pure emotion, violence, rage and mayhem. It was awesome. Closest thing to a riot you will get at a concert when the first notes hit. 

Not sure you remember the guy who had a girl on a leash or rope and he would throw her in the pit and then would pull her out by the rope after she got demolished. Weird shit and I remember not even paying attention to the show to watch this moron do this.
I remember my brother picking a guy off the ground by the neck because he caught the guy trying to cheap shot people. We were kind of an intimidating group looking back on it. 10 pretty large dudes in one POSSE! Yeah buddy 

In all seriousness, I will always remember how I felt leaving that show. I knew I had just seen one of the best shows of my life. Rage was the perfect band at the perfect time in my life. Just going back now and listening to their albums straight through, it still blows my fucking mind. It was great seeing Prophets of rage, but without Zack, it was mostly a cover band. I think Zack was one of the greatest front men ever. That guy just brought it every fucking time. Fucking 90's man!!

Returning to the village to eat and booze it put a perfect cap on the night....man this was a good one and thank Ceez for sending me this and actually inspiring this whole month of Full Show Friday's.

  

Enjoy:

Rage Against The Machine - (live) Roseland New York City,Ny 8.17.96
Killing In The Name
Bulls On Parade
Vietnow
Without A Face
Tire Me
Fistful Of Steel
Know Your Enemy
Revolver
Bullet In The Head
People Of The Sun
Bombtrack
Down Rodeo
Freedom
Township Rebellion