Given my sheltered youth, I didn't catch up with the band until Evil Empire came out. Back when I didn't know anything about anything, I started going into the Oasis record store next to the Oakland McDonalds, on Forbes Ave., I would see the band's t-shirts and the designs would always catch my eye. “Bulls On Parade” was the bait in the trap that I heard on the radio and it would lead to a lifetime of fandom. Every time I saw a Rage bootleg in the racks at Brave New World or CD Trader, I'd take it home with me.
I started studying their records like they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. If Zack de la Rocha mentioned something in a song that I was unfamiliar with, I tried to find that missing piece of information. In the liner notes of Evil Empire, there were various books shown in a picture. I sought out as many of those books as I could and that became my summer reading list. I was starting to see the holes in my education and reading those books started to fill in the blanks.
The last time Rage Against The Machine was near Pittsburgh was in 1997 when they toured with the Wu-Tang Clan. The show was at the Star Lake Amphitheater and I did not have a way to get several miles out of town to get to the venue so I had to skip the show. I did have a ticket to see them play with the Beastie Boys a few years later but the tour was cancelled due to an injury to one of the Beastie Boys so, again, no Rage for me.
This time around, they were set to play at the PPG Paints Arena, in the summer of 2020. Tickets went on sale that March and we all know what happened after that. The show kept getting pushed back because of our inability to act as a collective society for the greater good of humanity. I ended up walking around with three floor tickets for this show for over two years. Capitalism said, "Fuck everybody," and the show was finally set to happen.
As the show drew closer, I thought I'd try to come up with a photo pass to shoot the show. Normally, I have to try to find contact information for a tour manager or someone else in the touring party when it's for a show that I'm not working in another capacity. I tried reaching out through the internet as best as I could to find a way in but had no success. Two days before the show, I had almost given up and was accepting the fact that I was just going to have watch one of my favorite bands tear it up instead of taking pictures of them while they did it.
That's when I had the idea of trying to go through official channels for the photo pass. I'm just a record nerd with a camera and a blog that no one reads so I figured I'll just keep going through the process until someone said “No” and, oddly enough, no one said “No.” The day before the show, I received my approval email with a contract that I needed sign and that was it. Getting the pass was way easier than I thought it would have and should have been.
I had never shot in a venue that large and a stage of that size so I packed up every lens that I own because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I ended up using the same lens that I use at every other dank, poorly lit punk show that I wander into. Go figure.
Doors were at 7pm, Run The Jewels was set to hit stage at 8pm. My call time was at 7:45 and it felt like that was cutting it a little too close for comfort. I approached the entrance that my confirmation email me told to go to and security said that I was in the wrong place and needed to go the next door down. When I got to that door, I was told that I was in the wrong place and to go to the next door down. An unsettling pattern was beginning to appear. The last door was at the loading dock and was the entrance for the stagehands. The security guard at that door got on his radio and talked to someone and then told me I was in the wrong place. So I went back to the first door and further explained the situation and showed the staff the email I was sent. They finally relented and let me in the building. Eventually, other photographers showed up and then an arena employee came to gather us all up and took us to the lobby for the arena's administrative offices which was behind the stage and led to the photo pit.
We were handed our passes and debriefed on what we were and weren't allowed to do. I found out that there are a lot of rules involved with shooting an arena show which is also why there was a contract full of legalese involved. I am accustomed to the “first three songs and out” rule which comes with most mid-level touring bands and as someone who was raised right, I try to be aware of where I'm sticking my camera lens. Since Rage Against The Machine, for good reason, tries to control their public image and the media surrounding themselves, there were way more layers of security than the laid back shows I'm used to being involved with. I was completely understanding of the situation and tried to keep my ears open and mouth shut for the duration.
We were given the first four songs of both Run The Jewels and Rage. After the first four Run The Jewels songs we were escorted back to the waiting area so I missed the rest of their set. I also missed the change over from Run The Jewels to Rage which was something this stage managing nerd really wanted to witness so I might learn a thing or two.
While we waited, I ended up watching a decent chunk of a Stanley Cup Finals game from 1986 between the Calgary Flames and the Montreal Canadiens that was being played on the bay of televisions behind the receptionist. As I was watching the game I was still reacting when something happened even though I knew how the game was going to end. I did start to feel bad for the receptionist because you'd really have to like hockey in order to work in that building.
During this downtime I was also listening in while the other photographers were talking shop. They were mostly bragging to each other about different shows that they shot and levels of access that they had gained. That's when it dawned on me that the reason why there were so many rules was because of these guys. Most of the time, in some manner, I'm working the shows that I'm taking pictures of. I always keep my lens aimed at the stage and that's it. I feel gross taking candid shots of whatever else might be going on before or after a band's set so I'll keep the lens cap on unless someone asks me to take a picture of something.
We were eventually led back out to the photo pit for the four Rage Against The Machine songs. If I did not have a ticket to the show, I would have been escorted out of the building after those four songs. That is the first time I have encountered that. Usually, it's once you're in the building, you're in the building for the entire show so that struck me as odd. But those were the rules and I had a ticket so it was no big deal for me. I did have to leave my camera bag in this unsecured lobby while I went out to watch the rest of the show and then I had to go back to pick it up afterwards. That butted up against my brain a bit with the recent uptick in people having their shit stolen while on tour.
I'm not very familiar where everything is in PPG Paints Arena because it still chaps my ass that my tax dollars went to building the millionaire playground that it is. I've only ever been to two or three hockey games since it was built and the last time I was near the place there was a burning cop car in front of the building during the 2020 Uprising. I had one helluva time trying to keep my bearings while running around the building and remembering which unmarked doors I would need to convince security to let me through in order to retrieve my camera.
In order to get back to the show, I had to take an elevator down one floor, then two escalators back up to the entrance where they were scanning tickets and handing out wrist bands for floor access and then run back down several flights of stairs to get to the floor. All the while getting stopped by everyone in a gray polo shirt and khakis so they could ask me what I was doing and where I was going. I ended up missing “Testify” and most of “Take The Power Back” all to end up back to pretty much where I had started.
I got settled in at the soundboard and was able to hold it together until they launched into “Born Of A Broken Man.” That's when the tears came. As much as my brain wanted to be melted by “Down Rodeo,” my soul needed “Born Of A Broken Man” so I didn't mind the swap out.
I did have to keep reminding myself to not be irritated by all of the cellphones. Every phone was a portal out to the world. As much as I find people filming a show with their phone irksome, some drunk asshole's shaky phone video might catch a moment that will be seen by one of their younger relatives on social media and light the revolutionary spark inside that young person. It's not the easiest way to turn the tide but every drop in the ocean helps.
The crowd was the typical weird mix of yinzers that didn't bother to do the reading and were only there to party. I saw a woman with her 1980s hairdo wearing an “All Lives Matter” t-shirt. There were also various flag store patriot type shirts and a few Q-anon shirts. Their ignorance and apathy is a solid wall of titanium. Zack's message that “The powerful are terrified of you” more than likely was lost on the majority of the audience. People are too numb from consumerism to give a shit about anything but where their next beer is coming from and keeping the good times rolling.
I'm sure that more than one of these assholes had a problem with some of the images that were projected on the screen behind the band. If you were one these assholes feigning outrage over a burning cop car, you're your problem for not knowing what band you bought a ticket to see.
On every stop of the tour, a picture of someone that was murdered by the police is displayed on the screen during “Killing In The Name.” For the Pittsburgh show, the late Jim Rogers was the person displayed. He was a homeless man that was tased to death by nine Pittsburgh police officers, in October of 2021. To this day, none of the nine officers has been charged in the death of Mr. Rogers.
I did find it funny that a local music “journalist” posted an article questioning Rage Against The Machine's relevancy earlier in the day. Their records may be over twenty years old but that band is still very relevant to me. Rage contributed to making me who I am and every time I put on one of their records I get a reminder of the debt I owe them for helping to open my eyes.
I took almost four hundred pictures of Run The Jewels and almost seven hundred pictures of Rage Against The Machine. Sifting through all of the photos and editing them took almost three days to get through. All of that work was worth every minute of eye strain.
I'm not sure I would want to shoot shows of that scale on a regular basis unless I was getting paid for it. I definitely ran up against the business side of music and the whole experience was kind of weird. But to shoot that band and to be that close while Rage Against The Machine did their thing was worth every bit of hassle that I had to go through to do it.
Setlist:
People Of The Sun
Bulls On Parade
Bullet In The Head
Testify
Take The Power Back
Close Your Eyes (with Run The Jewels)
Guerrilla Radio
Vietnow
Know Your Enemy
Calm Like A Bomb
Sleep Now In The Fire
Born Of A Broken Man
War Within A Breath
Ghost Of Tom Joad
Freedom (with Township Rebellion Outro)
Killing In The Name
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