Rage Against The Machine play to 40,000 + at free London Gig!

Mon, 07 Jun 2010

Last night over 40,000 people attended the free gig hosted by Rage Against the Machine to celebrate their victorious Christmas Number 1 over the Xfactor single this past December.

The lucky 40,000 fans with tickets had an afternoon of entertainment as DJ's and support bands got the crowd ready for the main event at Finsbury Park, North London.  When Rage Against The Machine hit the stage around 9pm the fans were energetic and exciteable, some fans were climbing trees to watch the set with a better view (and stayed there for the duration!)  Fans without tickets also jumped over and tore down fences to get in on the action, reportedly security gave up the fight to keep them out after 20 minutes into the set.

Over 120,000 people applied for tickets for the event, with only 40,000 up for grabs in an online system which many fans spent hours waiting for a yes to the coveted tickets.

"We promised that if our song was number 1 we'd play a free show and today is the day. It's not your average Rage Against The Machine Show." The bands guitarist Tom Morello told the BBC.

During the show the band brought Jon & Tracy Morter , who started the Christmas Number One Facebook , to the stage to present the charity "Shelter" with the proceeds of the campaign.

In attendance along were also Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and the Libertines frontman Car Barat, and the set included a cover of the Clash's White Riot.

For the encore a video montage of press quotes played on the big screens to the Joe McElderry Xfactor single The Climb, before the band returned to the stage with an energetic powerful performance of the song the crowd had been waiting for, 'Killing In The Name Of' - we spotted a few fans dressed as Santa suits - I'm guessing they felt a little festive.

Check out the BBC news video with clips from the show here.

Rage Against The Machine will headline next Saturday night's main stage at Download Festival.

Related products:
Killing In The Name - Video Tutorial
Bomb Track - Video Tutorial