Tom Morello Power to the People Festival Unites 25-Plus Acts Outside Washington

There is a moment at the start of Tom Morello’s Power to the People festival (held today, 3 October, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland) when the scale of the thing becomes apparent. According to the Baltimore Sun, the bill stretches to more than 25 artists, making this inaugural gathering one of the more ambitious politically charged rock events staged in the United States in some years.

The Tom Morello Power to the People festival draws together a cast that spans five decades and several genres, with 17 individual members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame among the participants. Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, Dropkick Murphys, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, Cypress Hill, Stephen Stills and Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler are all on the bill. Morello has described the gathering as being built around ‘freedom, justice, equality and rock and roll.’

A Festival of Unity One Month Before the Midterms

The timing is deliberate. With crucial midterm US elections a month away, a portion of all ticket proceeds, plus 100% of net VIP proceeds, will benefit VoteRiders and HeadCount, two organisations helping attendees register to vote and understand how to participate in upcoming elections. Alongside those two, the festival’s participating organisations include the ACLU, Farm Aid, Rock the Vote, Oxfam, Noise for Now, Trans Maryland, the Woody Guthrie Center and the Mary Morello Memorial Project, among others.

‘In a time of hatred and division, this is a festival of unity and solidarity and joy,’ Morello said in an Instagram video. ‘In a time when there’s a lot of terrible shit in the world, we’re going to rock your ass with some of the greatest folk music, rock and roll music, hip-hop and heavy metal music that you’ve ever heard.’

It is a sentiment that connects this event to a lineage running from the anti-Vietnam benefit concerts of the early 1970s through Live Aid and Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! tour of 1988. What sets the Power to the People festival apart is the deliberate weaving of civic infrastructure into the festival experience itself.

The Freedom Village and Shepard Fairey’s Presence

Beyond the main stage, Obey Giant reports that the site includes a Freedom Village: an immersive space dedicated to civic engagement, grassroots organising, education, mutual aid and social impact initiatives. The idea is to make participation in political life feel continuous with the experience of being at the festival itself, rather than a leaflet thrust into your hand at the gate.

Shepard Fairey, whose work has been synonymous with politically engaged visual art since at least the 1990s, will contribute both original artwork to the event and a DJ set, according to Obey Giant. It is a pairing that feels entirely in keeping with the festival’s ambitions: Fairey’s aesthetic has long occupied the space where street art, activism and popular culture intersect, the same space Morello has staked out on the guitar for the better part of three decades.

Tom Morello Power to the People Festival: The Performances to Watch

Among the more intriguing sets on the bill: drummer Matt Cameron, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and singer Taylor Momsen are expected to revisit the music of Soundgarden during a short early-evening performance. It is the kind of moment that a festival with this many moving parts can produce almost incidentally.

Then there is Roman Morello, Tom’s 15-year-old son, who is expected to appear onstage with several acts, including Jack Sabbath, a teenage Black Sabbath cover band fronted by actor/musician Jack Black. Roman is also prominently featured on his father’s new album Everyone Gets Everything They Want, released on Mom + Pop Records. Watching a teenager navigate a stage that also holds Springsteen and Public Enemy is its own kind of statement about what this festival is trying to say about legacy, inheritance and the future of guitar-driven music.

The Tom Morello Power to the People festival is being streamed in full via MS NOW, meaning the argument the event is making (that rock and roll and political urgency are not mutually exclusive) will reach well beyond the Merriweather Post Pavilion’s gates today.