In 2022, Rage Against the Machine embarked on what is considered their final tour – the “Public Service Announcement Tour.” Despite having scheduled nearly 60 shows worldwide, the band were forced to cancel over half of these concerts due to both the COVID-19 pandemic and a leg injury suffered by frontman Zack de la Rocha.
As a result, in August 2022, Rage Against the Machine’s tour came to an end after five shows at Madison Square Garden in New York.
For the third anniversary of these five massive concerts, guitarist Tom Morello took to social media to reflect on the band’s last show and to share a sweet full circle moment he experienced at these gigs.
“A couple days ago was the anniversary of the final RATM show at Madison Square Garden in 2022,” Morello wrote in an Instagram post shared on Saturday (Aug. 16th). “In 1990 I was on tour with my band Lock Up playing a show on my birthday in rural Pennsylvania. There were zero people in attendance at the show. Literally ZERO.
“Sitting depressed in the motel room afterwards with the chain smoking bass player I said, ‘Gimme a cigarette.’ He said, ‘Dude, you’ve never smoked a day in your life you must really be depressed!’ I put the cigarette in my guitar case and said, ‘No I’m going to smoke this one onstage when I sell out Madison Square Garden.’ We laughed.
“So 32 years later at the last MSG show I took it out of the case (there’ve been several replacements through the years) and thought about smoking it, but, well, I still hate the idea of smoking so I didn’t. Afterwards I just put it on my mantel next to the platinum commemorative ticket for the 5 sold out shows. Nothing but love and gratitude to the band and the fans for making this very improbable story come true.”
