Rage and reason: Tom Morello’s intimate Ottawa evening
Tom Morello celebrated Halloween by going from rock god to storyteller on Oct. 29, trading arena-sized fury for intimate theatre acoustics in a performance that bridged generations of fans at Meridian Theatres at Centrepointe.
The guitarist is well-known for his roles in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.
Morello presented his Night of Stories & Music to a sold-out crowd, blending personal anecdotes with the political fire that has defined his four-decade career.
For many in attendance, the evening offered both validation and a call to action amid current global tensions.
“I’ve been listening to Rage Against the Machine since I was a kid,” said fan Tracy Ludmer. “He speaks to me because he scratches that part of my brain that needs to be validated with everything going on in the world right now.”
The sentiment was echoed by her daughter Maeve Ludmer, who admired Morello’s unwavering stance. “He’s so outspoken and unabashedly unspoken,” she said. “He talks about hard conversations because he knows it’s the right thing to do.”
For older concertgoers like Bob Godwin, Morello represents a continuation of music’s protest tradition. “Music and politics have always been linked,” said Godwin. He prefers smaller venues like Centrepointe these days. “I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, and those were very political times musically.”
On stage, Morello traced his journey from being “the only brown kid” in Libertyville, Ill., to studying at Harvard University and eventually to rock stardom.
He credited his mother, activist Mary Morello, as his foundational influence, while demonstrating how he developed his signature “DJ as guitarist” approach using ordinary pedals to create extraordinary sounds.
“If I ever made a mistake on the guitar, I would play it plenty of times until it sounded right. It was my way of making my guitar my own,” said Morello on stage.
He also mentioned the role his absent father, Ngethe Njoroge, a Kenyan journalist and diplomat, played in his life. Despite never hearing his son pluck a note on a guitar, Morello credits his father for instilling in him his anti-authoritarian views on stage. Njoroge was involved in the Mau Mau Uprising for Kenyan independence (1952–1960).
The format of the show allowed for both quiet reflection and blistering intensity as Morello built complex arrangements alone on stage. Stories about political awakening flowed seamlessly into solo versions of One Man Revolution and Killing in the Name, each anecdote providing context for the fury that followed.
Throughout the evening, Morello returned to his concept of the guitar as a “weapon” — not of violence, but of truth and justice.
For the diverse audience of longtime fans and new adherents, the message resonated across generational lines, proving that protest music remains as relevant as ever in challenging times.
