Renegades Tour 1999-2000

Lore & Background

By the time *Renegades* hit shelves in the autumn of 2000, Rage Against the Machine had already rewritten the rulebook for what a rock band could say and do on a main stage. The album itself—featuring the title track, a cover of Public Enemy's *By the People*, and the politically charged *Testify*—doubled down on the band's identity as a vehicle for left-wing, anti-imperialist commentary. The tour that followed was less a conventional promotional run and more a rolling political rally dressed in feedback and flame. Audiences in Chicago, Berlin, and São Paulo heard the same core message: the machinery of empire was visible, nameable, and could be challenged.

Tom Morello's role on this tour was as much visual as musical. His custom-built guitar rig, with its cascading cables and effects units, turned every solo into a mechanical performance. Brad Wilk's drumming provided the relentless engine, while Tim Commerford's bass lines locked the rhythm section into a groove that made even the most politically dense lyrics feel danceable. Zack de la Rocha, perched on a monitor or pacing the stage, delivered his verses with the cadence of a street-corner orator, and the crowd responded in kind—chanting, raising fists, singing back every syllable.

The tour's shadow was the growing friction between the band's members, a tension that fans could sense in the gaps between songs, in the way the post-show press conferences grew shorter and more scripted. The original lineup's final shows in early 2001 carried an unspoken gravity. No one announced it, but the energy in the room had shifted from pure exuberance to something more tender, as if the audience collectively understood they were witnessing the last act of a story that would, for a time, end.

In Their Own Story

The arena in Lisbon smells of diesel and cheap beer. The lights cut to black, and for three seconds the only sound is ten thousand people breathing in unison. Then Tom Morello's rig crackles to life—a sound like a transformer waking up—and the first chord of *Killing in the Name* detonates through the PA. Zack steps to the center, mic in one hand, the other fist raised. He doesn't shout. He doesn't have to. The crowd roars for him, fills every gap in his rhythm, becomes the second vocal track. Brad Wilk's kick drum hits like a heartbeat under the floor. Tim Commerford's bass hums a frequency you feel in your sternum. When the song ends and the silence drops, someone in the front row is crying, and no one around them thinks it's strange. The next song is *Testify*, and the whole arena becomes a single, shaking body. Zack looks out into the dark, and for a moment his expression isn't anger. It's something closer to gratitude. Then the pyrotechnics fire, the smoke rolls in, and the show is back to being a weapon. But that one quiet second stays with you. It stays with everyone who was there.

Reader's Guide

The Renegades Tour ran through late 2000 and into early 2001, threading through major North American and European festival circuits as well as arena dates. The setlists typically cycled through all four albums, opening with high-octane tracks from the debut and *Evil Empire*, building through *The Battle of Los Angeles* material, and closing with the newer *Renegades* material. *Killing in the Name* and *Bombtrack* were near-universal audience favorites that punctuated the set.

Stagecraft was a hallmark. Tom Morello's multi-amp rig and effects cascade were a visual centerpiece, and the production frequently included pyrotechnic bursts, smoke machines, and a large LED or projection backdrop. Zack de la Rocha regularly broke the fourth wall with pointed political commentary between songs—references to ongoing U.S. military actions, corporate media criticism, and calls for audience engagement beyond the concert itself.

Audience reception was electric. Festival crowds in Europe and North America treated the set as a communal event, with singing-back becoming a near-universal ritual. The tour's final shows, as the band's internal tensions became publicly visible, carried an undercurrent of farewell that fans only fully recognized in hindsight. No major guest collaborations were a consistent feature of this run, keeping the focus squarely on the four-piece's own material and message.

Did You Know?

• The *Renegades* album included a cover of Public Enemy's *By the People*, a collaboration that reflected the band's long-standing debt to hip-hop and political rap.
• Tom Morello's guitar setup on this tour was so elaborate and visually distinctive that it became one of the most recognizable images in late-90s rock, often photographed in close-up by concert photographers.
• Rage Against the Machine's first breakup, which followed shortly after this tour, lasted roughly seven years before the original lineup reunited in 2007.
• The band's live political messaging during this era drew both enthusiastic support from activist communities and criticism from conservative media, cementing their reputation as one of rock's most outspoken political act