Rage Against The Machine has cancelled an upcoming North American tour in 2023.
The band was scheduled to hit the road in Portland on March 23 for their Public Service Announcement tour before heading out for a series of concerts that concluded in Detroit on April 2.
But frontman Zach de la Rocha’s leg injury, which occurred during the second concert of their previous North American performance in Chicago on July 11, forced the band to cancel further upcoming concerts.
In a statement on RATM’s social media pages, which you can view in full below, the frontman confirmed that he tore his Achilles tendon.
North American 2023 Rage tour CANCELED pic.twitter.com/ILmTGtAulX
— Rage Against The Machine (@RATMofficial) October 4, 2022
He said: “It’s been almost three months since Chicago, and I’m still looking at my leg with disbelief. Two years of waiting during the pandemic in the hope that we will have the opportunity to become a band again and continue the work that we started more than 30 years ago. We rehearse, we train, we reconcile, we return to the form. Then he shows one and a half and my tendons are torn.
“It looks like a cruel joke that the universe played on me. As I write this, I remind myself that these are just bad circumstances. Just an awesome moment. Unfortunately, this is a moment that requires a lot of work and healing. I have a serious rupture of my left Achilles tendon, and only 8 percent of my tendon remained intact. And even that part was heavily compromised.
“It’s not just a matter of being able to work again, it also applies to basic functionality in the future. That’s why I’ve made the painful and difficult decision to cancel the remaining shows on our 2023 North American leg.”
This came just two months after Rage Against The Machine were forced to cancel their concerts in the UK and Europe in 2022 due to the “medical guidance” given to de la Rocher after his injury.
Among those cancelled concerts was the band’s headlining performance at this year’s Reading and Leeds festivals.
In the same month, photographer Glen E. Friedman discovered that de la Rocha’s injury was related to a ruptured Achilles tendon. “I went to see my good friend Zach (with his torn achilles) perform at Madison Square Garden last night [August 12],” he wrote at the time. “Even sitting down during the performance, Zach De La Rocha showed the world what they were missing in all the years that he was away from this incredible group of musicians.”
