Wednesday Apr 9, 2008 (8pm)
Sure, as guitarist for Rage Against the Machine he generated a decade's worth of ass-kicking riffs, but Tom Morello's achievements since have been a bit more dubious: he sat in with the Dave Matthews Band, made a cameo on Star Trek: Voyager, and popped up in schlocktacular supergroup Audioslave. Perhaps to make up for the latter, Morello is now borrowing comrade Zack de la Rocha's soapbox for a solo tour as the Nightwatchman. He's replaced Rage's showmanship — not to mention the veil of effects pedals — with a nylon-string classical guitar and and a series of stripped-down acoustic sing-alongs. Ok, so Morello isn't the most impressive frontman and his über-populist lyrics often border on the insipid, but, between the bold-faced moralism and gravelly baritone, he does manage a pretty bad-ass imitation of the Boss.
– Brian Skar