Watch Rage Against The Machine Play “Fistful Of Steel” For The First Time In 25 Years

Theo Wargo/Getty Images

Watch Rage Against The Machine Play “Fistful Of Steel” For The First Time In 25 Years

Theo Wargo/Getty Images

Rage Against The Machine’s long-awaited reunion tour has been eventful to say the least. Zack De La Rocha reportedly tore his ACL on the second night of the trek, which forced him to perform sitting down, which is not that man’s default setting. A security guard accidentally tackled Tom Morello. Guy Fieri kept showing up. Weird shit. Nevertheless, Rage reportedly ripped it up every night, and they kept bringing long-absent songs back into their setlist. This past weekend at Madison Square Garden, they revived “Fistful Of Steel,” an absolute banger from their self-titled 1992 debut, for the first time since the Clinton administration.

In certain ways, “Fistful Of Steel” has aged a lot. When Zack De La Rocha first rapped about steppin’ up in the jam and slammin’ like Shaquille, Shaquille O’Neal was just starting off his rookie year on the Orlando Magic. Today, Shaq is a four-time NBA champion who’s been retired for over a decade and who now spends his time ruining telecasts with his grumpy-ass energy. Also, nobody has called him “Shaquille” in like a full generation. (He still appears in roughly the same number of TV commercials, though.) In other ways, though, “Fistful Of Steel” has not aged at all. That song still kicks many different varieties of ass.

Last night, Rage finished a five-night stand at Madison Square Garden, ending this leg of their tour. (The band had to cancel their UK and European dates because of De La Rocha’s injury, and they’ll pick it up again in Las Cruces, New Mexico next February.) On Friday night, the fourth of those five MSG shows, they dusted off “Fistful Of Steel,” a song they hadn’t played live since a Norwegian festival in July of 1997. The song still absolutely wrecked. In the live footage, it’s amazing to see De La Rocha still rocking extremely hard while seated. Check it out below.

According to Rolling Stone, this tour has featured Rage playing every song on their first album except for “Settle For Nothing.” They should bring that one back, too!

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