The Battle of Britain! RAGE GO TO WAR IN WEMBLEY

Rage Against the Machine,Asian Dub Foundation: Wembley Arena, London, 28.January 2000

KKKK [=Blinding]

Los Angeles' premier agit-rock crew bring their quest for truth and justice to London.

COPS AREN'T exactly known for their intelligence or truthfulness, but Jesus, you had to laugh when America's Fraternal Order of Police President Gilbert G Gallegos described Rage Against the Machine as a "mediocre band at best". Mr Gallegos also wishes to inform us that Rage's "real talent is not music but radical politics". Let's see: supporting fair wages for workers, speaking out against human rights abuses, exposing institutionalised racism -yeah, pretty damn radical in a nation which laughingly calls itself "The Land Of The Free".

Yes, Rage are f***ing political. But at a time when the British governmnet can't quite decide whether to commit Nazi war criminals to trial, when Tipper Gore - the former head of America's right wing anti-rock and rap music pressure group the PMRC - is just two steps away from becoming America's First Lady and when the loathsome c**t who presided over Britain in the '80s is revealing here true colours by campaigning in support of a Chilean dictator, we need bands with something to say more than ever. Christ, it the alternative is bands singing about doing it all "for the nookie"....

First up tonight though, are Britain's own musical revolutionaries Asian Dub Foundation who pull of a minor miracle by getting the hardcore Rage fans skanking happily. ADF mix Beastie Boys-style rap-rock with bowel-wobblingly dub reggae, and then top it off with a brand of polemic which makes them the perfect support for Mr de la Rocha and co. Tonight, the likes of "Free Satpal Ram" and "Black White" go down very well indeed, suggesting that ADF could well be on the verge of some well-deserved crossover success.

Following a lengthy trawl through John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" album, four men amble onstage and pick up their weapons of choice. According to the little bloke with the dreadlocks this "Rage Against The Machine, from Los Angeles, California."
No shit, Sherlock....

"Testify", the violently funky opening track of Rage's most recent album "The Battle of Los Angeles", is fired off first and five things are immediately evident. Rage still play huge stages like the hungriest club band. Drummer Brad Wilk sounds like he's hitting kettle drums with telegraph poles. Timmy C's bass is fatter than Gavin Rossdale's wallet. Tom Morello still does scary unearthly things to a guitar wielding it like a 17th century Digger taking an axe to the heads of the "men of property". And Zack de la Rocha, stomping about like a man who's just discovered an army of cockroaches invading his bedroom, can still whip a crowd into a frenzy like no one else. Ten thousand souls dutifully go "chicken oriental".

Musically, you could argue that Rage are something of a one-trick pony, with their quiet-loud-quiet-apocalyptically loud songwriting formula, but in the live arena it's a bloody effective trick. And if "The Battle of Los Angeles" represents evolution rather than revolution in the band's songwriting, then as Tom Morello stated last year; Rage have never sounded quite this funky or rocked this hard.

"Guerilla Radio" is a storming call to arms, "Born Of A Broken Man" rolls and grinds like the bastard son of Hendrix and Led Zep, "War Within A Breath" is magnificently moody and "Sleep Now In The Fire" and "Calm Like A Bomb", complete with Morello's blinding "ambulance siren" solo, are just staggering in their sheer ferocity.

Rage's "classic" manifestoes sound more vital than ever too. De la Rocha dedicates "People Of The Sun" to his brothers-in-arms Asian Dub Foundation, Morello does his very best Jimmy Page impression when strapping on a twin-necked Gibson guitar for Springsteen's "Ghost Of Tom Joad" and "Bullet In The Head" and "Know Your Enemy" gets ten thousand people bouncing up and down in a spontaneous aerobic work-out the likes of which this huge, shitty soulless shed has never seen before and will probably never see again.

After and hour of the most incendiary noise, Rage bows out with a lean and mean "Bulls On Parade" and the seething tension of "Freedom", before blowing Wembley apart with rock's most stunningly dynamic anthem "Killing In The Name". Yet another stultifyingly mediocre performance from the LA riot-starters then. Yeah, and Ian Paisley's going to be the next Pope...

Paul Brannigan