• Affordable, quality healthcare for everyone;
• Wages that can support families;
• Freedom to join unions without intimidation;
• Retirement security.

The music acts included Atmosphere (all the way from Minneapolis!), Mos Def, The Pharcyde, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, and Allison Moorer. But perhaps the most talked-about act was Tom Morello and Friends, the guitarist from legendary political-hard-rock group Rage Against the Machine. Rumors had been circulating for a couple days that the "friends" referred to on the flier were in fact Rage Against the Machine, and that concert goers would be surprised (or not) by a sudden unannounced performance. This possibility was augmented by the fact that Rage was shceduled to play in Minneapolis just two days later.

Ironically, the surprise performance was going to occur the next day at the free Ripple Effect festival on the St. Paul capitol grounds. But when Rage showed up to play, police cut the power to the stage, forcing the band to reduce their would-be-epic performance to chanting and singing through a bullhorn to an angry, disappointed crowd. Isolated riots ensued.

What did happen on Labor Day? One awkward Atmosphere fan tried to show us that crowd surfing can work, even during one of the group's slowest songs (front-man Slug soon pointed out the young man's foolishness and told him he was not cool.) Mos Def brought a little slice of Brooklyn to the Midwest with his vigorous performance, taking us on a brief jaunt across his considerable music catalogue. And The Pharcyde's Fatlip shot down theories that he was the reason the group broke up in the mid-'90s.

Mos Def

All in all the show was great, and it's always cool to see a bunch of young-faced, first-time voters considering their political power. But the absence of Rage Against the Machine struck a bad chord, and their inability to perform the following night only amplified it. My head still throbs.

Rating: 4 out of 5 mics

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Roe Pressley