5 Amazing Moments From Prophets Of Rage’s Brooklyn Show

Co-written and edited by Doug McCausland

In 2016, a supergroup comprised of Public Enemy’s Chuck Dand Dj Lord, Cypress Hill’s B. Real, and Rage Against The Machine’s Brad Wilk, Tim Commerford, and Tom Morello formed as a protest against the Republic National Convention and the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and history was made with the “Make America Rage Again Tour”. Supported by electronic rock band Awolnation and Tim Commerford’s punk side project, WAKRAT, the Prophets made their way to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Saturday, August 27th. Here’s a recap of some of the best moments of the night.

5. DJ Lord

The venue was pretty large and was packed by the time Prophets came on stage, but even before then, the crowd was revved up by DJ Lord, playing many famous rock and hip hop hits. Songs like “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen and “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” by Ol’ Dirty Bastard helped get the crowd pumped, while a chopped up version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was an audience favorite.

4. No Sleep Til Brooklyn

Appropriately for the venue, the Prophets came on stage with a cover of the Beastie Boys classic “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”. This version of the song added in lyrics from the Public Enemy song “Fight the Power”.  The set then shifted to a mixed of classics from both Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy.

3. B. Real & Chuck D.

After playing the Cypress anthem “How I Could Just Kill A Man” and the Rage classic “Testify”, the Rage members got off the stage.  During this time, B. Real and Chuck. D went into the audience and rapped an epic medley of retro hip hop tracks, including “Bring The Noise”, “Insane In The Brain”, and “Welcome to Terrordome”. The crowd went absolutely wild.

B. Real provided backup vocals for Public Enemy songs led by Chuck D., while the reverse happened for several Rage songs; this was a great decision cause B. Real’s vocals sound a little similar to those of Rage Against the Machine frontman, Zack de la Rocha.

2. The Ghost Of Tom Joad

After getting back on stage, the band did another set of Public Enemy and Rage covers; this included a remix of the PE classic “She Watch Channel Zero” that replaced the riff from Slayer’s “Angel of Death” with the riff to “Cochise” by Audioslave. After this, we got a very unexpected cover of “The Ghost Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen. On this version, Tom Morello sang and sounded just like The Boss himself. Aaron Bruno from opening act AWOLNATION also joined vocals for this cover.

1. Killing In The Name Of

While fans got a healthy smattering of hits from all three of Rage’s studio albums throughout the night, including “Bombtrack”, “Testify”, “Sleep Now In The Fire”, and “Bulls On Parade”, it was the show’s closer, “Killing In The Name Of”, that really got the crowd going. During the climactic “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” segment, the stadium lights were abruptly turned on, illuminating the several mosh pits that formed in General Admission and the highly charged audience in general.

B. Real had one last thing to tell Brooklyn before departing the brightly lit venue:

“Legalize it!”