Cheap Rage Against The Machine - Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Rage Against The Machine - Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium

Much Better Than Battle Of Mexico City
This performance (RATM's Last) covers the band in full force. From the early rants of Bulls On Parade to the fists in the air at the end of Freedom, Rage once again proves to be one of the most revolutionary bands out there. Covering songs from all three of their albums, it also includes three tracks from Renegades including How I Could Just Kill A Man with Cypress Hill and others. The camera angles in this DVD are much more spectacular than Mexico City, although the sound quality is about the same.
I was disappointed with the performance coverage of the DNC protest. I thought the camera angles would be better from that, and the sound is much worse than the Olympic Auditorium show. But you get an awesome bunch of concert clips of theirs while How I Could Just Kill A Man play, as well as an old musicvideo of Bombtrack.
Overall, this is a must have DVD, much better than Mexico City. If you are a true Rage fan, then you have to get this. You won't regret it!

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Strong Performances = Great DVD
This DVD captures Rage's final concert performance in 2000. The event was laid down on film, not video, so it's got a professional vs. a made-for-Canadian-TV look. Unfortunately, however, the editing includes too many cut shots with effects (slo-mo, drop-frame, etc) that takes away from the overall package. I would have preferred a straight-forward, almost documentary style for a performance this strong - there's no need to hype it up like a music video. The straightforward look is on display for the bonus material of the performance outside 2000's Democratic National Convention in LA; plus, this may be an even better musical performance than the Canadian show.

Both performance are as tight and energetic as you'd expect. They both also highlight the contrast between the heavy rock of Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk vs. the hip-hop lyricism and delivery of Zach de la Rocha. I don't believe that any of them will ever equal Rage while working on their individual side projects (i.e. the valium pill that was Audioslave). One constant irritation was that both shows would have benefitted from unplugging the mic in front of Commerford - stick to the bass, my man. Also, the obvious opportunity for an unforgettable audience participation moment during "Killing in the Name" went surprisingly flat - come on, don't you people know the words?

Overall, a pair of great performance packaged together at a super-cheap price. Highly recommended for the Rage completist or anyone interested in seeing what they're all about. Finally, the liner notes contain contact information for a number of political action groups that they support - no matter what you think of their politics, you've got to admire that they've apparently done their homework and are challenging the listener to do the same.

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Rage's final performances.
With the exception of the footage of the Democratic Convention protest, this DVD tends to focus less on political extras and more on the music. I suppose this would make sense, with the band broken up it would be difficult to arrange documentaries and interviews of the type found in Battle of Mexico City.

On the basis of the music and the DC protest footage, I can give this DVD four stars. If the auditorium performance were as good as the protest concert then the DVD could have easily gone up to five stars for my rating. Its not that the Auditorium concert was flawed in any way, but more that they have set the bar so high in previous performances that they seem to have to find new and inventive ways to make the performance better than usual.

The concert in the Grand Olympic Auditorium is filled with great music. But with the exception of the giant red stars being unveiled at the start of Bulls on Parade and the appearance of Cyprus Hill and Zacks's comments about the DC protest there was little else that hasn't been seen in some other form on the other DVD's. But it is a good concert nonetheless, with the familiar fan participation in some of the songs. At some points Zack even asks the crowd questions like how many of them were at the protest or how many of them have heard of MC-5, this seems like a great way to build a, "Fan-Band," relationship. Still, this did not excite me very much compared to the seas of humanity at their European performances in the self titled DVD. There is also a scene that was edited on this DVD but was uncensored on the self titled one, in which Tom Morello's mother introduces, "The best band in the f**ing universe." In this DVD, the profanity was bleeped out.

The protest concert was obviously more than just a musical event, but a situation in which ratm could directly contradict their enemies. This feeling is amplified by having helicopters flying above Zack as he sings, police patrolling the fence of the concert and eventually threatening and attacking the crowd that was clearly motivated to keep up the good fight just by having Rage there. If anyone is reading this who was actually at that protest, all I can say is, "Good show!" Its almost like the old lines between the band and their fans was made thinner and they seemed to be working together to make the place as rebellious as possible; Rage with the provocative music and the fans with their, well, rage (no pun intended). It is in this performance that the Rage seems to be more than just a band, but some sort of alternative fighting force, bombarding the police and the democratic convention with radical lyrics and funk. If at any moment during that day the democrats got the idea that they were doing going to have their convention without any major confrontation outside the building, it probably got stomped by Rage's feet at they stepped onto the stage.

This DVD is a welcome part of my Rage collection.