Tom Morello has held the inaugural edition of his Power To The People festival, and it saw some huge one-off collaborations with Jack Black, Foo Fighters, Bruce Springsteen and more. Check out footage below.
The festival took place at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, last Saturday (October 3), and was designed by the Rage Against The Machine guitarist to be a “day of peace, love, justice and music”.
Back in May, it was confirmed that Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Joan Baez, System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian, Dave Matthews, Brittany Howard, Dropkick Murphys, Jack Black, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike and more were on the bill, and last month, a second wave of names were announced, including Black Sabbath‘s Geezer Butler, Anthrax‘s Scott Ian, Pearl Jam‘s Mike McCready.
Held to “bring together artists, fans, activists, organisations and community leaders for an unforgettable day celebrating the power of music and collective action to inspire change”, the event saw some unique collaborations when it kicked off early on Saturday.
One of the biggest moments of the festival came when acting legend Jack Black took to the stage alongside Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Cypress Hill, Tom Morello, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, and Anthrax’s Scott Ian to break out a cover of Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’.
Black also performed earlier in the day too, joining Morello’s son Roman, Scott Ian’s son Revel, and Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler for a cover of ‘War Pigs’.
Foo Fighters came together to perform ‘Times Like These’, ‘All My Life’, ‘The Pretender’, ‘My Hero’, ‘Best of You’, and ‘Everlong’, as well as a cover of ‘Young Man Blues’ (originally wrote by Mose Allison but famously covered by The Who).
Frontman Dave Grohl also joined Morello to collaborate on a cover of KISS’ ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’, and he also spoke to the crowd – both recalling his time campaigning for Attorney and former United States Secretary of State John Kerry, and also giving a shout out to his “new friend, Jack”, presumed to former assistant U.S. attorney and special counsel Jack Smith who was seen in the audience (via Consequence).
One of the most star-studded moments of the festival was the all-star jam session that came at the very end of the night. It started out with Springsteen on the stage solo, performing his politically charged song ‘Streets Of Minneapolis’, before inviting Baez to join him to cover ‘Chimes Of Freedom’ by Bob Dylan.
Later, Morello joined to help them perform The Clash’s ‘Clampdown’ and ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’, and they were then joined by Dave Matthews and Nathaniel Rateliff to play Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Fortunate Son’.
Dave Grohl then joined the all-star jam, coming out to perform Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’, and all other performers came out for a final medley of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ and John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People’.
A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales (plus 100 per cent of the net proceeds from VIP tickets) were donated to VoteRiders and HeadCount. The former is a pro-democracy, pro-voter organisation working to restore and strengthen democracy by eliminating confusing and restrictive ID-related barriers to the ballot box. The latter is a charity that helps fans register to vote and learn more about how to participate in upcoming elections.
