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Coachella was a mighty weekend indeed. There was a Nightwatchman performance on Saturday in the appropriately titled Gopi tent. Temperatures reached 107 degrees in the shade. I kept a very low profile on the Coachella weekend. The Nightwatchman and Rage Against the Machine were going to be a lot to juggle so I hid in the hotel for the most part. Making my way out into the blistering heat for the 5 pm Nightwatchman show on Saturday, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought that it was possible that at the tent there would be arrant concert goers or Rage Against the Machine fans chomping at the bits and ready to mosh, but not necessarily listen. I was pleasantly surprised to find thousands of eager and open ears awaiting me when I stepped on to the stage in the sweltering heat. A self-imposed curse of having to wear my Nightwatchman uniform of heavy black jeans, button down black shirt and black cap, made sure that I put style before comfort paid a heavy toll. The audience was awesome and while some people were familiar with the songs, everyone seemed to know the right places to cheer and the right places to remain spookily silent. The set list was as follows: One Man Revolution, Union Song, Maximum Firepower, The Road I Must Travel, Flesh Shapes the Day, Let Freedom Ring, House Gone Up in Flames, and This Land is Your Land. The highlight of the show was a rousing rendition of This Land is Your Land where I was joined on stage by Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of The Coup. We unearthed the lesser-known rebel verses of the timeless Woody Guthrie classic and Boots free-styled and awesome hip-hop verse which injected a 21st century immediacy into this great rebel anthem.

The Nightwatchman One Man Revolution Tour is beginning with the periodic shows leading up to the official tour beginning in Toronto. A stop on the way though was at the Claremont college benefit show hosted by Ben Harper and played in a 2,000 seat college auditorium. This show was very interesting in that it was a crowd of local townsfolk of all ages from beautiful Claremont. They were attentive and The Nightwatchman was appreciative. The set list from that show was One Man Revolution, Union Song, Maximum Firepower, Flesh Shapes the Day, Midnight in the City of Destruction, House Gone Up in Flames, No One Left, Guerrilla Radio, and This Land is Your Land. I played No One Left as a request from a Nightwatchman super-fan in the parking lot. The Nightwatchman does not normally take requests, but she asked REAL nice. Ben Harper asked me to join him on his cover for Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”, a song I had never sung so I hurriedly scribbled down some cheat sheets. While it was unusual to play sitting down with the great Ben Harper sitting down orchestra, I had a fine time and “Masters of War” is very much a song of the moment.

The Nightwatchman One Man Revolution Tour officially began in the great white north on May 16, 2007. I flew to Toronto and experienced/endured a long day of promotion, skipping between radio stations and in person interviews for print. Generally the level of journalism in Canada is pretty high and it was an engaging day of thoughtful questions and live performances on a number of radio stations. My good friend Bob Ezrin was in Toronto, you may know him as the guy who produced Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” or Kiss’s “Destroyer” or more recently Jane’s Addiction’s “Stray” album. He’s a great guy and a huge fan of music and on the night of my show at the horseshoe tavern, Bob brought me to an earlier show to see the Arcade Fire play their show in a beautiful old theater. While I was so weary from the days work, I could hardly stand. The Arcade Fire were awesome and played most of their two great albums “Funeral” and “The Neon Bible” to rapturous applause from the packed house. I then had to scurry over to my own show at 11 pm and was blown away by the packed house of Nightwatchman fans eager for a Nightwatchman thrashing. The crowd, which I understand was peppered with Audiophiles taking me up on my offer for free admittance to Nightwatchman shows in return for their gracious support over the last 5 years, made for one of my favorite shows that I’ve ever played to date. The set list went like this: Union Song, One Man Revolution, Maximum Firepower, Midnight in the City of Destruction, Flesh Shapes the Day, No One Left, House Gone Up In Flames, Garden of Gethsemane, Guerrilla Radio, Let Freedom Ring, The Road I Must Travel, This Land is Your Land, and Until the End. There was an amusing banter with some members of the audience including unusual fights at a Tom Morello show..frisky female fans. But really, the audience could not have been better. Many knew the words and were pin drop silent during the spookier parts of the songs—much appreciated!

Later that evening after the show I went out with some local friends, including the members of a great Toronto band called Nice Cat and we stumbled across last years winner of Canadian Idol, the equivalent of American Idol. He was a dreamy, young Robert Plant looking dude who was very popular at the bar we were at. We sat there exchanging stories of rock, pop and folk and I’m afraid perhaps drank too much, making the 7 am flight to Louisville the next morning somewhat less exciting for The Morningwatchman. Matters were compounded when Northwest Airlines lost all of my luggage including my guitars and I was scheduled that afternoon to play at several radio stations in Louisville. Another thrilling day of radio promotion followed, without guitars, for enjoying the quiet, laid back Louisville vibe.

Show day in Louisville! I was scheduled to perform at a conference for pubic radio broadcasters and fans in Louisville, Kentucky. As a big fan of race horsing, I was tempted to blow off the whole day and head over to Churchill Downs but I resisted the temptation and The Nightwatchman is good to his word. More promotional stuff occurred during the day including surprisingly good sushi that they have there in central Kentucky. Though the city is clearly not near anywhere schools of yellowtail and tuna, the sushi was top-notch as was the hospitality. The service at McDonald’s was excruciatingly slow, in case you’re interested. The first night of promotion ended up in a place called Rock Bar in Louisville and the guest performer that night was Marky Ramone, the drummer of The Ramones, who was oddly jamming along with some DJ spinning Ramones songs. I was hustled into a “V.I.P.” area which meant that the owner of the club got to arrange a photo shoot with me and 200 of his friends while Marky played drums in the background. All in all it was a fun time. The horrifically effective Irish Car Bomb drink made its return (kids, stay away from this one) in Louisville. I was scheduled to play a short set for the public radio broadcasters who are very different and a far more genteel lot than the alternative radio DJs and programmers who I’ve spent much of my career with. I enjoyed my time with them. I played about 5 songs for a jam-band oriented audience that was very much looking forward to seeing Mo later in the evening. During the show I received a gift bag from a Nightwatchman fan that was filled with two exotic blends of fancy Kentucky bourbon…like I needed any more to drink. Again, much appreciated and they were very tasty. I brought one bottle home to share with friends back here.
Anyways, I went back for more Kentucky-style sushi that night and tried to order a bluegill roll or a catfish tartar but was unable to. I went home the next day to pack my bags for an upcoming trip to Europe. See you soon!