By Josh Herwitt //

Tom Morello + special guests with Seven Hours After Violet //
House of Blues – Anaheim, CA
February 6th, 2025 //

When I first started listening to Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut LP during the early 90’s, you couldn’t help but feel the energy and passion that was blasting out of those speakers in my bedroom.

Even if I hadn’t heard a lot of music by that point in my life, I could already tell it was like nothing anyone had ever experienced either. Their fusion of rap, metal, funk and punk as a vehicle for lead vocalist Zack de la Rocha’s politically charged lyrics was unlike anything that had come before it and blazed a trail for many imitators to follow sonically despite them not achieving the same kind of commercial success and worldwide appeal RATM received.

But the last album Rage released — of strictly cover songs mind you — is almost 25 years old, and the chances of the four-piece putting out new material is slim to none since they canceled the remainder of their European and North American tour dates in 2022 and 2023 after de la Rocha suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon onstage.

It wasn’t until drummer Brad Wilk issued a statement on Instagram at the beginning of last year that any hope for a reunion to continue ahead of the 2024 presidential election was lost, as he made it clear they “will not be touring or playing live again.”

I remember reading Wilk’s words shortly after they were posted and being bummed that the possibility of seeing one of my favorite acts in the flesh again was gone. With the COVID-19 pandemic canceling their 2020 headlining set at Coachella, there was still a belief among RATM fans they would be there after the Los Angeles Times reported in an exclusive interview with Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett as much. While that never materialized by the time most of the coronavirus restrictions across North America were being lifted and the renowned California festival’s 2022 lineup had finally been revealed, the LA group did get its “Public Service Announcement Tour” — with Run the Jewels signing on as support — off the ground a few months later before de la Rocha’s eventual injury on the tour’s second stop.

Rage, nevertheless, pressed on for 17 more shows with de la Rocha unable to walk and affixed to a chair that culminated in NYC over five nights at Madison Square Garden and stand as the LA outfit’s final performances currently.

“I hate cancelling shows,” de la Rocha wrote more than three months after his setback in Chicago. “I hate disappointing our fans. You have all waited so patiently to see us and that is never lost on me. I never take that for granted. For you I have the ultimate gratitude and respect.”

Roman Morello (middle) & Tom Morello (right)

These weren’t just any shows, however. After all, they marked RATM’s first in 11 years amid a full-length tour that hadn’t happened in twice as long. When you consider such, it’s hard to not regret missing them or think about how I should have traveled out of state to attend at least one considering an LA date was not listed when the tour was announced.

“If there ever was a band we need back, it’s Rage,” I have often said to myself.

RATM, sadly, have been a thing of the past well prior to their 2023 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but that hasn’t kept guitarist Tom Morello at the age of 60 from fighting the good fight and proving there’s always a place for protest music.

Our latest opportunity to join him in solidarity came on a wet winter evening at the House of Blues Anaheim, which I had not visited in more than a decade and was unaware of its newer digs since renovations were completed. From a political standpoint, it was slightly surprising to see Morello hit Orange County for one of two scheduled shows in the greater LA area. The long drive in rush-hour traffic didn’t keep us from reaching the 2,200-person music hall, though, where we found a packed crowd awaiting the 8 p.m. arrival of Seven Hours After Violet. Formed by System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian less than two years ago, the metalcore project delivers its songs hard and fast (no tracks on the quintet’s debut LP reach four minutes). It didn’t sound like anything that Morello would unleash subsequently, but the mostly male audience ate everything SHAV cooked up over their 45-minute opening set and probably would have come back for more if there wasn’t a main act to catch.

Morello was who we came to see of course, and as we anticipated, the setlist proved to be a mixture of his solo material, covers of RATM as well as other notable artists, and songs from The Nightwatchman project he started in 2003 as a way to express himself politically outside of his work with Audioslave.

Bursting onto the stage armed with a guitar and fist in the air, Morello and his son Roman immediately blew the roof off the house, diving right into their 2024 collaborative single entitled “Soldier in the Army of Love” and then transitioning to “One Last Dance” that they also unveiled last year with grandson for the superhero film “Venom: The Last Dance” starring Tom Hardy. Other surprise guests were Måneskin guitarist Thomas Raggi and The Struts lead vocalist Luke Spiller, each assisting separately on spirited renditions of MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams” and AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” back to back.

Yet, it was a couple of RATM medleys that ultimately drew the loudest and most passionate response from the sold-out room. A tribute to Chris Cornell that played on the video screen during Audioslave’s “Like a Stone” served as a poignant moment to honor the late singer, although a Tom Morello concert wouldn’t be entirely complete without him paying respect to “the Boss,” too. I have always loved Rage’s version of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen and seeing Morello take a crack at it instantly brought back fond memories. Did the decibel levels (and profanity) rise as much as they did for RATM’s “Killing in the Name” soon afterward? No, not quite. Did folks in LA get more surprise guests? Yes, they most certainly did with Slash and RZA both dropping by The Fonda Theatre a day later. It would be easy to presume, with that in mind, that we picked the wrong show of the two. We could live in more regret or feel gratitude seeing Morello do what his does best by uniting us through the power of music. And as we jumped to John Lennon’s “Power to the People” at Morello’s request down the homestretch, I knew this outing might not have lived up to that time I saw Rage rock The Forum in high school, but it sure is the next best thing we can witness now.

TOM MORELLO WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

Setlist:
Soldier in the Army of Love (with Roman Morello)
One Last Dance (with Roman Morello)
Testify / Take the Power Back / Freedom / Snakecharmer (Rage Against the Machine song)
GOSSIP (Måneskin cover) (with Luke Spiller on lead vocals and Thomas Raggi on guitar)
Lightning Over Mexico
One Man Revolution (Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman song)
Union Power
Hold the Line
Let’s Get the Party Started
Secretariat
Cato Stedman & Neptune Frost
Keep Going
House Gone Up in Flames (Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman song)
This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie cover)
Kick Out the Jams (MC5 cover) (with Thomas Raggi)
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (AC/DC cover) (with Luke Spiller on lead vocals and Shavo Odadjian on bass)
Bombtrack / Know Your Enemy / Bulls on Parade / Guerilla Radio / Sleep Now in the Fire / Bullet in the Head (Rage Against the Machine song)
Cochise / Like a Stone (Audioslave song)
The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen cover)
Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine song) (with Roman Morello)
Power to the People (John Lennon cover)

SEVEN HOURS AFTER VIOLET

Setlist:
Gloom
Cry…
Paradise
Radiance
Abandon
Go!
Float
Alive
Sunrise