Tom Morello’s Power to the People Ends With Springsteen, Grohl and a Protest-Song Jam

The first Power to the People festival ended with almost everyone who’d played crammed onstage for a Lennon song. Tom Morello’s one-day event took over Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, on Saturday (Oct. 3), and the best moments were the collisions, NME reports.

The Rage Against the Machine guitarist billed it as a “day of peace, love, justice and music,” with part of the proceeds going to the voter-registration groups VoteRiders and HeadCount. Spin counted 17 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members on the bill.

In a time of hatred and division, this is a festival of unity and solidarity and joy.

Tom Morello, Spin

The moments

**“Walk This Way.”** Jack Black, Run-DMC’s Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Cypress Hill’s B-Real and Sen Dog, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Morello all joined for the Aerosmith hit Run-DMC famously remixed 40 years ago, according to NME and Stereogum. Black also fronted his teen Black Sabbath cover band Jack Sabbath, who played “War Pigs” with Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler.

Read moreJay-Z’s MarcyPen Is Reportedly Weeks From Co-Owning Fenty Beauty With Rihanna

**Foo Fighters.** Dave Grohl’s band played “Everlong,” “Best of You” and “The Pretender,” and covered “Young Man Blues,” which the band hadn’t played since 2021. Grohl also joined Morello for KISS’ “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

**Soundgarden’s songs.** A one-off tribute set called Suns of Soundgarden had Taylor Momsen, Morello, Mike McCready and drummer Matt Cameron on “Loud Love,” “Outshined” and “Spoonman,” a few weeks after Soundgarden’s halftime reunion at a Seahawks game.

**The finale.** Bruce Springsteen played last: “Streets of Minneapolis” solo, then Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” with Joan Baez, the Clash’s “Clampdown” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad” with Morello, and “Fortunate Son” with Dave Matthews and Nathaniel Rateliff. Grohl came out for Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” and everyone closed with “This Land Is Your Land” and “Power to the People.” Stereogum says Springsteen hadn’t played “Fortunate Son” since 2009 or the Neil Young song since 2004.

Morello released his new album, Everyone Gets Everything They Want, just before the festival. It features Kneecap on “Unconquered.”

The day wasn’t only about the music. Hours before it started, Rolling Stone published an interview in which Morello said he hadn’t voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, and Stereogum noted that the festival had been billed as non-partisan and that the news prompted plenty of surprise online.

The organizers’ thank-you statement ended with a line that doubles as a mission: “The music may be over, but the work continues.”