Tom Morello Setlist

Promises
Killing in the Name ¹
Soldier in the Army of Love
Hold the Line
One Man Revolution²
Keep Going³
Bombtrack / Know Your Enemy / Bulls on Parade / Guerrilla Radio / Sleep Now in the Fire / Bullet in the Head ¹
instrumentals medley
Cochise / Like a Stone⁴
This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie cover)
with Tim McIlrath, Ike Reilly, and Al Di Meola

¹ Rage Against the Machine song
² Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman song
³ Tom Morello and The Bloody Beetroots song
⁴ Audioslave song

Bruce Springsteen Setlist

Streets of Minneapolis
The Ghost of Tom Joad
with Tom Morello and Morello’s band
Power to the People (John Lennon cover)
with the ensemble

Rise Against Setlist

Prayer of the Refugee
Welcome to the Breakdown
Savior
Rockin’ in the Free World (Neil Young cover)

Ike Reilly Setlist

At Least Another Day
Put a Little Love in It (According to John)
F**k the Good Old Days

With a federal government that is actively trying to intimidate anyone who dissents against their preferred positions, it’s hard times in many places. But rather than rolling over, there has been an increasing resistance to these scare tactics. As ICE, CBP, and DHS have flooded major cities in blue states, there has been a growing organization of normal citizens to protect their fellow community members. Starting in November 2025, the sheer number (at one point, over 4000!) of masked federal agents in the Twin Cities and their reckless methods has been daunting. With the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, the Twin Cities has galvanized, with various walk outs and protests. As Vu pointed out in his Musicians vs ICE article, so many people from around the country and honestly, the world have been sending Minnesota their support. To that end, on a day of planned protest in downtown Minneapolis, and First Avenue was playing host to a noon time show with Tom Morello and Rise Against headlining “A concert of solidarity & resistance to defend Minnesota!”.

As you can imagine, First Avenue was packed to the gills and absolutely buzzing, as people were looking forward to the listed acts (which also included guests Al Di Meola and Ike Reilly, who we recently saw at his annual Thanksgiving Eve show), as well as speculation on who the “Very Special Guest” might be (hint, it was quickly settling on one New Jersey resident).

Getting things started was Ike Reilly, an Illinois-based musician and we noted in our recent review, he’s got a great blues rock sound, with 2021’s Because the Angels the most recent album. He was a perfect start with At Least Another Day, alone on stage with acoustic guitar and harmonica, focusing the audience’s attention to a laser point. Reilly’s son Shane joined Ike, and after the first paean to the Twin Cities’ resilience, they went into Put a Little Love in It (According to John) with lyrics that really hit hard. I was pretty impressed with the younger Reilly handling this very sold out show quite well. F*** the Good Old Days was a perfect close and with Ike exhorting the crowd to “keep going”, headed off the stage.

Al Di Meola is a jazz fusion guitarist, with a long solo career after coming up with Chick Corea’s Return to Forever group. Di Meola is well known for his world music perspective and has released a large discography over fifty years, including 2024’s Twentyfour. Starting with a brief statement, about “needing to support the cause”, we got some beautiful guitar with a Latin flair and style. The audience fell nearly silent and Di Meola’s work served as a reminder that art in its simplest and purest form is a connector and the shared experience is one of building community. These were relatively brief numbers, though the third was a bit more expansive and really demonstrated Di Meola’s mastery of the craft.

Rise Against is a hardcore punk band out of Chicago, who have been at it since around 2000, and hit commercial success with their third album Siren Song of the Counter Culture, released in 2004, and they recently released their tenth, Ricochet, in 2025. They have always been known for their social commentary in their music and have campaigned for a number of social causes over their career. Coming on stage as “half the band Rise Against”, they started with a brief thanks and reminder that Minnesota is an inspiration all over the world right now. Prayer of the Refugee got a raucous response from the crowd and that mostly acoustic sound was quite effective. Welcome to the Breakdown was a direct shot at power grabbing despots and the fall out of that for the majority. Savior had the grittiest sound from Rise Against and they added a snippet of Bastards of Young, making the local connection and the crowd singing along. Closing on a cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World was a banger of an ending for Rise Against, and the next change over got going.

Although Tom Morello might best be known as the guitarist for the very successful and influential 90’s rock rap group Rage Against the Machine, he has done a lot of other work as a solo artist, as well as part of other groups like Audioslave, Prophets of Rage, and has been a touring member of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. He’s also well-known for his leftist political views, where he has been active in and outside of his musical work. Coming on as a quartet vocals/guitar, guitar, bass, and drums), Morello gave the most vehement and demonstrative speech of the day on the state of things. Killing in the Name was absolutely bonkers as the crowd was asked to do most of the lyrics. This was a big release moment for many and I enjoyed getting to watch the crowd in such high spirits. Also, Morello is absolutely electric and charismatic as performer and guitarist. First Avenue had gone completely bezerk and when Morello tore into the bogus notion of the protest work in the Twin Cities being due to “outside agitators”, he said, “I can confirm that we (the band) are those agitators”. Soldier in the Army of Love had Morello rap/speaking lyrics and heavy power guitar. Morello was flying and deputized the “congregation present as anti-fascists” and jumped into Hold the Line, continuing both the message and the thundering hard rock. Morello was changing guitars at every song and drew the audience forward, even as he did a solo & quieter number (well, for him) in Keep Going.

We had a section of Rage Against the Machine instrumentals that was tight, and the transitions were super effective to keep focus and energy high. The set was almost over and Morello invited Reilly, Di Meola, and Tim McIlrath join for a great version of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, one of the great early protest songs and and if you haven’t checked it in a while, those latter verses are inflammatory to the status quo. It was outstanding and everyone left the stage but Morello who gave one more speech before introducing Bruce Springsteen, who came out to sing his brand new song Streets of Minneapolis. While in Bruce’s words, “it may be a little soapboxy”, his performance of it was gritty and real and the crowd was rightfully blown away. Getting a quartet, an electric version of The Ghost of Tom Joad was a perfect number for what is going on and with Springsteen and Morello trading verses and sizzling guitar solos was insanely fun to witness. Closing with all of the musicians on stage we had a short section of Power to the People, that then included the audience and an absolutely magical concert came to the end, with Let’s Go Crazy being played over the speakers as musicians hugged and chatted and the audience did the same as we headed out to the streets.