Morello imagines something bigger

Tom Morello, who has staged benefit shows for decades, began imagining a multigenerational festival built on the idea that music can be an act of resistance against Donald Trump.

Festival timing targets midterms

The Power to the People concert took place on October third at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, less than thirty minutes from the capital, three weeks before the midterms.

Morello explains the festival's purpose

Morello told me the festival guaranteed artists could play and say what they wanted in a time when hatred, division and injustice are rife, and artists face censorship or cancellation.

“In a time where hatred and division are rife, this is a festival of love and solidarity.”

A sprawling roster of rebels

Morello assembled Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Jack Black, the Dropkick Murphys, Cypress Hill, Nathaniel Rateliff, Killer Mike, Serj Tankian, Stephen Stills, Dave Matthews and the Foo Fighters.

Springsteen headlines the event

Bruce Springsteen headlined the festival fresh off a twenty-show tour that had become a nightly rebuke of Trump, MAGA and the authoritarian currents threatening the American experiment.

Baez speaks to the crowd

Joan Baez, who sang alongside Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger during the protest movements of the nineteen sixties and seventies, told the crowd they are the antidote in a world of cruelty and bullying.

“You are the antidote in a world of cruelty and bullying.”

A progressive family reunion

The festival drew aging boomers carrying the counterculture as a secular inheritance and younger activists animated by rage against corporate power, democratic erosion and the war in Gaza.

Operation Metro Surge becomes turning point

Morello says the turning point came after Operation Metro Surge, when the Trump administration deployed roughly three thousand federal officers to Minneapolis for immigration enforcement, resulting in killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Artists volunteer after Minneapolis

After Minneapolis, artists began calling Morello to volunteer for the festival. Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys said the concert showed there is a community wanting a peaceful, empathetic and unified America.

“Days like today let us know that there's a community out there that wants to see a peaceful America, an empathetic America, a unified America.”

Ten hours of protest music history

The concert began at one in the afternoon and ran for ten hours, compressing the history of American protest music into a single day with performances spanning generations and genres.

Springsteen opens with Minneapolis protest song

Springsteen opened with Streets of Minneapolis, his protest song against Operation Metro Surge written days after ICE flooded Minnesota's streets and murdered two protestors.

Generations unite on stage

Springsteen's set became an ensemble of generations of American rock musicians gathered around the protest-song tradition, performing Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son and Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World.

Guthrie's song restored to full power

The festival closed with Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land, performed with verses often omitted from popular renditions that challenge America to make good on its promise to everyone.

Morello's message to voters

Morello told the crowd that history is not something that happens but something we make, reminding voters they determine their destiny in a democracy at a precarious moment for Trump.

“History is not something that happens. History is something we make.”