Rage Against The Machine Shut Down The Stock Exchange For ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’ Video

In January 2000, Rage Against The Machine teamed up with director Michael Moore and decided to film their single for ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’ on the steps of Federal Hall, right in the heart of the New York Stock Exchange. To the city officials, this was a concern. 

As the video starts out explaining, via captions, on Monday of that week the NYSE had seen record profits, along with record layoffs. On Tuesday, Mayor Giuliani had decreed that RATM would not play on Wall Street, in a response to buzz surrounding the upcoming shoot. On Wednesday, RATM played on Wall Street and this music video acts as a document to that event. 

Protesting Wall Street greed and corporate corruption is nothing new for a band like Rage. But actually going into the belly of the beast and causing such a ruckus that the actual exchange ended up shut down and trading ceased for a few minutes around 3pm? That’s some political rock and roll stuff you don’t see much anymore.

The video itself cuts in and out of raw footage of the band playing on the steps of Wall Street. Equal parts fans and cops mingling in the crowd around them as they follow the only missive provided by Director Michael Moore: Whatever happens, keep playing. 

The other half of the video is a parody of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where each question highlights a major economic problem going on in the world. Eventually a homeless man wins the big money, but chooses to walk away. Leaving the audience to storm the set and ransack the cash for themselves, like so many rich assholes have done to them a million times before.

While those scenes would make a solid video in their own right, the more compelling footage is the band on Wall Street. The police trying to make sense of what’s going on, while also attempting to shut the band’s instruments down (an impossible task, as they were just freestyling to a track being piped in from speakers). A man caught on film with a “Donald Trump For President” sign. Michael Moore himself being led away in handcuffs, allegedly telling Tom Morello to storm the stock exchange. 

Storm it they actually did. Morello led about 200 people into the first set of doors before the titanium gates came crashing down. Ending the performance and also triggering a freeze in trading for a few minutes while everything settled down. 

Director Michael Moore ended up detained for about an hour and the band themselves probably had their instruments scuffed up quite a bit. But, as the end of the video points out, thank God no money was harmed during this incident. 

We can sit here until the bulls come home and argue about how effective the band’s stunt was or the intricacies of art as protest. But what can’t be denied is that, even if for just a few short minutes at the turn of the millennium, Rage Against The Machine raged at the right place, at the right time to actually get The Machine shut down.

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