The Nightwatchman, Serj Tankian at The Roxy, Atlanta 10/20/2007

Sorry about the really bad phone pic of Tom and Serj performing together during Tom's Nightwatchman set, but what a great show.

It was so refreshing to see a couple thousand people slamming to Woodie Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land." Tom Morello did a classic protest set on nylon-string guitar and harmonica, belting out tunes about union workers and war crimes and racism. I saw lots of young hacky-sacker types, frat-a-likes, and, most interestingly, parents with their kids all singing along with raised fists. For anybody who's ever seen Dylan or even the Indigo Girls, it was nothing new, but damn it was nice to see one man with a gut-string bring the rock old-school. Certain other git-tar heroes might spend their bands' downtime hosting inane reality shows (paging Mr. Navarro, you have a call on the lame courtesy phone) or just hanging out and enjoying their millions, but Morello has something to say, y'all, and he's out there saying it. Big ups.

Serj Tankian's set was a thrilling outburst of often Zappa-esque art metal executed by a tight-as-tick six-piece band. When there's so much mediocre crap on the radio, it's great to see a committed artist out there taking risks with their music and being successful.