Last year, Rage Against the Machine were set to reunite for perhaps the most anticipated rock tour of 2020. Whether the band embarks on its rescheduled outing this year remains to be seen, but bassist Tim Commerford suggests that it won’t happen until they can play in front of packed venues.
The pandemic forced Rage Against the Machine to table their first tour in 10 years, just a few weeks before it was set to kick off. As of now, the rescheduled dates are slated to begin June 3rd in El Paso, Texas. It just so happens that Texas is set to lift all capacity restrictions (and foolishly end mask mandates) beginning next week, but that’s not the case in most states.
Either way, Commerford is not looking to play drive-in shows, where people watch from their cars, or reduced capacity concerts. “We’ll never be one of these sellouts that’s gonna go play a drive-in show or play a venue that holds 100,000 people and there’s only 10,000 people there,” the bassist told TooFab when they ran into him at a hardware store parking lot. “That’s bullshit. Rage will never do that. It’s not a good show unless the audience is going off, too. It’s gotta be a shared experience.”
As for what fans could have expected on the planned 2020 tour, Commerford said, “It was already going to be something really special without getting into it, like we were doing things that we never done before, and we’re all better musicians than we’ve ever been before.”
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He added, “The music was all time and it was just exciting. It was going to be a really great new version, a new exciting version of Rage.”
Fingers crossed that Rage Against the Machine will eventually be able to embark on their reunion tour, with full crowds at each show, once it’s safe to do so.
Watch Tim Commerford discussing his thoughts on returning to the stage below, followed by a crowd “going off” (as Commerford eloquently put it) during a rousing 1993 performance of “Killing in the Name”.