Though cops swarmed outside Chicago’s House of Blues Saturday afternoon (April 14), arresting performances stayed on stage as the Nightwatchman’s Tom Morello joined his fellow Rage Against the Machine bandmate Zack de la Rocha for their first performance together in seven years. The activist rockers came out in support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers organization fighting in support of fair wages, but it was the Nightwatchman who initially set the stage for the Concert for Fair Food.
Armed with an acoustic guitar emblazoned with the slogan “Whatever it takes,” Morello rolled out a handful of songs from his upcoming Nightwatchman album, One Man Revolution (out next week), and a haunting rendition of Woody Guthrie’s truly subversive “This Land Is Your Land” to a crowd of nearly 2,000 revved-up Rage fans. Once a curly-haired Zack de la Rocha hit the stage, he and Morello charged through fiery, unplugged versions of Rage standouts like “People of the Sun,” “Bulls on Parade,” and “Down Rodeo”– an outstanding precursor to the group’s Coachella reunion next month. EMILY YOUSSEF / PHOTOS BY ROY GARDINER
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We asked: If you were a rock star, what social issue would you rage against?
