6. Rage Against The Machine - Finsbury Park (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjvklKa1mOU Having slaughtered yet another annual-nobody in form of Joel McElderry thanks to a grassroots campaign that propelled Rage's debut rebellion-anthem Killing In The Name into a Xmas number one, the chaps were thoroughly chuffed with their fans in England. So much so in fact that they offered to put on a free gig as a thank you, donating all the profits from that day to the homeless charity Shelter. A brilliant cause, and one of the Best Things Ever on the part of the band I'm sure you'll agree. For the most part yes it was (I should know I was there, sardined up the front emptying my lungs as I bellowed out every last syllable to Testify and Know Your Enemy) however as with any event where anybody can attend, you'll get just as many berks as brothers-in-arms. Thus although the free tickets were allocated beforehand by way of a voluntary system that saw many of us wading through boggle-eyed into many identification screens, in the end the forty thousand (mostly) diehard fans on the inner-circle were bombarded by a few hundred not-so-lucky field-occupiers who decided to try and reverse-Shawshank their way in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjvklKa1mOU Needless to say security eventually gave up and let the majority through, although for all except the outer-rung of people on the inside, it was way too jam-packed upfront to notice any difference. Following the gig the resulting endorphin-injection brought on by playing the likes of Rage's music across a field at cat-shatting volumes meant the horde of punters carried on their wayward thoughts across the city, clambering up traffic lights and even surfing atop a bus as it rode away unaware.