Rage Against The Machine
Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium

THE REVIEW

"A vague sense of emptiness colors me"

I borrow this line from an old Litfiba album just because it expresses what you feel when listening to this live album.
The void left since Zac De La Rocha left RATM and the survivors gathered Chris Cornell in full descending parabola is truly immense. An abyss that is difficult to fill, a Mariana Trench where thousands of CDs flutter, their uselessness evident as they settle on the seabed, quickly forgotten and covered by new other albums that settle on top.

Anyone who, at least once, has had the fortune to attend a live concert of RATM will understand PERFECTLY what I'm writing.

Starting with the first track "Bulls On Parade," which begins with Tom Morello shaking the amplifier's jack plug on his Fender Stratocaster, producing that unique and inimitable sound. And the audience goes wild.
If you stop for a moment to look at the ceiling, you can still see those CDs lying on the trench bed. Useless, pretentious records to be..."crossed".

Then "Bullet In Your Head" takes us back to the release of the band's first self-titled album, dated November 10, 1992 — wow, 11 years ago and it feels like yesterday. So much energy still in this track that it doesn't even seem to be played live, so perfectly is it rendered.

The climax arrives at track 4, which in my opinion should have been the penultimate before "Freedom," as they usually did at concerts. I'm talking about "Killing In The Name".

"And now you do what they told ya (and now you're under control).....Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!",
how many of you have thought at least once in your life of screaming it at someone?

My CDs from these last 2 years leave the shelf and, floating, plunge into the abyss.

The tracks follow each other with overwhelming intensity, at a volume unbearable even for the very patient neighbors who will eventually file a complaint. I barely notice, so delirious am I, a cover of MC5's "Kick Out The Jams" before collapsing into the final trilogy of "Know Your Enemy", "No Shelter" (a track from the Godzilla soundtrack) and "Freedom".

CDs from these past years float in a whirlwind, like in those globes you turn upside down and the snow falls on the plastic model of the Statue of Liberty.

Where did they perform this concert? Dunno, I'll look it up later, right now I'm too absent. Lost.
It might be a "the Best Of.." live, it might be a market operation, it is what it is, it's the swan song of a band that made a difference. And the void is felt now, that they're no longer here.

R.I.P.