Back in 2015 more than 1,000 electric guitarists and other musicians got together in Cesena, Italy to perform Foo Fighters' Learn to Fly in an effort to get the band to play a concert in their hometown.
The stunt worked – the Foos played in Cesena on November 3 of that year, opening their set with – what else? – “Learn to Fly.”
Since then, the Italian organization behind the performance, Rockin’ 1000, has staged similar gatherings centered around other Nineties-adjacent songs and artists, including Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Hole’s Celebrity Skin.
Now, Rockin’ 1000 has released a video of their latest event – 1,000 musicians blasting out Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name for a stadium of frenzied, and, in some cases, body-painted, Germans at Commerzbank-Arena in Frankfurt on July 7.
Witness scores of guitarists, bassists, drummers, horn players(!) and a single conductor lead a literal mob of voices through the once-again timely (is it ever, unfortunately, not timely?) 1992 rap-metal classic.
Never has raging against the machine looked or sounded so joyous.
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“I probably hauled in 20 guitars. I listened to the record top to bottom, turned to him and said, ‘It doesn’t need anything’”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on the one studio session where he lugged a ton of guitar gear – and didn't use any of it
