Rage Against the Machine - Live at Grand Olympic Auditorium - Region 2 DVD

That said, the concert footage, taken from a few different RATM shows, is crisply shot and conveys enough of RATM's intoxicating (if one-dimensional) ferocity to be effective. A couple of the videos are also worth seeing, if only because they wouldn't have much hope of getting played on television: the clip for "Freedom", especially, is a clever and acute retelling of the story of American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier, shortly to complete his third decade of imprisonment.

On the DVD: Rage Against the Machine on disc has a choice of stereo sound or Dolby Digital 5.1. English subtitles are available on most tracks. Special features include a track selector, contacts for organisations with which RATM are sympathetic, and a book list largely comprising indigestible polemical tracts of the sort often bought, but rarely read, by the earnest students who constitute Rage Against the Machine's core audience. However, given that most bands use any spare capacity on their DVDs to flog T-shirts, RATM deserve credit for trying something different. --Andrew Mueller