Excellent news for Rage Against The Machine fans! If you are a fan you probably already have your tickets for July 30th when the band will perform along with Muse, Rise Against, Lauryn Hill, Immortal Technique and el Gran Silencio at the Los Angeles Coliseum. But, according to what Tom Morello said, you may be doing this again next year:
‘It's a much broader endeavor than sort of a normal rock gig would be. Our hope is that we're able to establish a festival in Los Angeles that people look forward to seeing every year. But, right now, all we're concentrating on is making sure that July 30 is awesome.’
Every year? Despite some rumors about some new material, the band hasn’t released anything since 2000, so it would be a sort of rebirth.
So L.A. Rising will be much more than just a rock show, as all the bands which are participating want to raise a social awareness among attendees by the mean of a ‘Re-Education Camp’. I am not making this up, a Re-Education Camp? It sounds a little bit errrr…. Military? Communist?
According to craveonline.com, the camp will be a collection of at least 30 local and international nonprofit organizations presenting issues that affect everyone in Los Angeles, and the four major areas will concern war, immigration, poverty, and labor.
‘We are passionate about ending the wars overseas, immigrant rights, protecting working families, and combating hunger and homelessness in L.A. We want to present our fans the opportunity to get informed and get involved while we rock them senseless.’ ‘This is a Rage Against the Machine show — we chose the bands and the venue, we're choosing the activists and the charity causes that will be in the Rage Re-Education camp that will be part of the venue. The 20th anniversary of the first time the four of us were in a room together is this August and we thought "What better way to mark it than by, from the very humble beginnings of playing in a little rehearsal studio in the San Fernando Valley, to playing the biggest venue in town?’ added Tom Morello.
We get it, it's a social-consciousness raising festival, but please don’t call it a camp, it’s creepy