With the One57 residential tower (aka the “Billionaire Building” with a $90 million penthouse) in the background and the CNN studios in the same building, Lincoln Center’s Allen Room (QRO venue review) is an incongruous venue for Tom Morello, and he made several references to it throughout his show there on Saturday, February 16th for Lincoln Center’s ‘American Songbook’ series, starting with:
“This is a very classy joint – from Zuccotti Park to Lincoln Center; quite a trajectory.”
Introducing “Union Town”, he noted that the Allen Room has union stagehands, and he flew to New York courtesy of union pilots and union air traffic controllers and that he is a proud member of the Professional Musicians Local 47 in L.A.
The most emotional song of the night was “Stray Bullets”, which Morello dedicated to Tomas Young, who after 9/11 enlisted in the Army. After just five days in Iraq he was shot through his spine and was left permanently paralyzed from the chest down. Young announced on February 7th that he was “pulling the plug”. Morello said that he will play “Stray Bullets”, per Tomas’ request, at the funeral.
Up ‘til this point every song was played on one of his two acoustic guitars: the steel string ‘Black Spartacus’ or the classical nylon string ‘Whatever It Takes’.
Acknowledging that he hadn’t played a song with an electric guitar, Morello picked up his iconic ‘Arm the Homeless’ Stratocaster and, with Carl Restivo playing rhythm guitar, launched into Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad”. Morello tapped into his arsenal of sounds that he can conjure and it resulted in a standing ovation.
Morello first played “The Ghost of Tom Joad” with Springsteen in 2008 and has been playing on and off with The E Street band ever since.
He then humorously told the audience that:
“I’m going to be playing with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band on their Australian tour [he’s filling in for Steven Van Zandt due to Van Zandt’s acting commitments].”
“I’m supposed to know 200 songs but I only know this one!”
For an encore, Morello asked everyone to stand up and sing along to “This Land Is Your Land”, in which he added the two missing verses that were censored from the original. Making his only reference to Rage Against the Machine, he said, “There’s always two people in the last row who yell out, ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!’”
Morello then invited everybody onstage to sing the chorus to “World Wide Rebel Songs”. The core message he communicates is that we are all in this together, and this was about as powerful a way to communicate that as possible.
After finishing the song, he asked how much time was left.
He was told seven minutes (it was 9:53pm)
Ending the night, with everyone on stage now sitting, Morello sang “Let Freedom Ring”, finishing right on time at 10pm.
After all, it’s a union hall.
Links:
BODY OF WAR
Tomas Young, disabled veteran, tells audience he’ll commit suicide
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land
-words: Levi Pervin
-photos: Ruth Arnold
