I promise I will not use the F word

I promise I will not use the F word.

After getting lost walking the streets of Surry Hills, I was late to the gig but after overhearing that it seemed like the support guys had been playing for two hours, I can’t say that I was particularly upset.

However, having missed out on Rage Against the Machine tickets I was super excited about the prospect of catching Tom Morello do his solo thing. His first words only heightened the anticipation as he proclaimed “I am the Nightwatchman, and this is a one man revolution!”

Decked out in Aviators, baseball cap and multiple harmonicas and acoustic guitars, Morello looked every part the roaming troubadour. His gravely smooth vocals would held the perception as his baritone voice sounded somewhere between Barry White and Tom Waits.

There was the occasional localisation of the songs, and the stupid interstate crowd rivalry, but this annoyingly clichéd banter was minimal, while his story of Chris Cornell skulking around a hotel room thinking of way to break up Audioslave received raucous laughter and jeers. His left-wing, anti-Bush,'We’re all one' big religion messages were a little naive and sometimes misguided, but his sincerity was undeniable and endearing.

Most of the tracks were fighting songs, freedom songs, unions songs, or a combination of the above. There was even one Morello described as being about the moments of peace between electric shocks. Twice he specifically asked the crowd for quiet, using the buddy system, and the new "Take a step towards freedom, and it’ll take two towards you” track sent shivers. The other was a track about the City of Destruction in which the squeak of the rotating electric fans on the wall could be heard. The promised rockin out in return for the hush came later in the form of a funky blues version of the Rage classic 'Guerrilla Radio'.

Morello’s “biologically sexy rhythms” were infectious, and the crowd eventually clapped and jumped enough to make the Gaelic shudder to its cellar. The new track about his Aunt “Saint Isobel” featured just a harmonica and tom tom as the tribal boom-boom-boom and the prayer “God make her road straight and true/ Saint Isobel is coming thru” reached an emotional chord in the sausage filled crowd not even the Pogues could muster at an Irish family reunion.

He rounded out the show with a story of Mike Moore’s first ever arrest at the filming of Rage’s 'Sleep Now In The Fire', and songs about roads he must travel, and being with you now until the end. The tried and true fodder of all great Folk musicians. Fuck, sorry.

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