Skip to content
Premieres

Young and Shirtless: Watch Rage Against the Machine’s Early-’90s In-Store Performance

rage against the machine

Rage Against the Machine celebrated the 20th anniversary of their landmark 1992 debut last year with XX, a deluxe box set that featured live bonus tracks, exclusive demos, and DVDs packed with concert footage. Now, a longtime fan of the Los Angeles rap-metal rockers has shared another performance from the band’s nascent era on YouTube (via Consequence of Sound).

The 40-minute in-store set — which was filmed on March 29, 1992 at Long Beach’s ZeD Records — features the baby-faced foursome tearing through future classics “Bombtrack,” “Take the Power Back,” “Killing in the Name Of,” and more, all while wedged into the aisle of a good old-fashioned independent record store (Jack White would be proud). Rage may have played this gig more than six months before they unleashed their self-titled LP onto the world, but the “raw wound” at the center of the group’s heart is on full display in this clip. For a look at frontman Zack de la Rocha’s early dreadlock days, watch the entire gig up above.