Rage Playing RNC TODAY, Free/Unannounced

Closing out Ripple Effect festival at State Capitol Lawn.

By Fred Mills

5:45 pm EST: With the free Ripple Effect festival in progress right now in Minneapolis-St. Paul at the State Capitol Lawn as one of several concerts this week coinciding with the Republican National Convention, it's activist nirvana in the Twin Cities - and BLURT has just learned that none other than that most active of musical activists, Rage Against the Machine, is going to do an unannounced set at the Ripple Effect.

The band has kept the news hush-hush all day long, reportedly because the city police have been trying to get the festival shut down and Rage doesn't want to give the cops any additional incentive. But if all goes as planned, the group will go on between 6 and 6:30 pm local (Central zone) time. The concert was advertised as ending around 7 pm. So this is a natural fit - kids, you might not get home on time today like you planned.

Also on the bill: headliner Michael Franti, plus Dead Prez, Anti-Flag and Wookie Foot. Guest speakers include Medea Benjamin, Will Steger and Winona LaDuke. You can go to the Ripple Effect site HERE.

Rage, recall, is already scheduled to play a regular (if anything is "regular" in Minneapolis-St. Paul this week) concert Wednesday night at the Target Center. And Rage guitarist Tom Morello, in his other guise as the Nightwatchman, performed yesterday at the Service Employees International Union protest concert along with Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Mos Def and the Pharcyde. (Read BLURT's coverage of the Monday events HERE.)

But in a statement issued last week, Morello broadly hinted that his band's involvement during RNC week might extend further than merely walking out onto the stage of an arena. Said Morello, "While there's a lot of clinking of champagne glasses and toasting one another and passing big checks back and forth inside the convention, there's a reality on the streets outside that will be represented by the Nightwatchman and Rage Against the Machine and Anti-Flag and all the other bands playing to protest in Minneapolis-St. Paul. We'll be outside the barbed-wire fences throwing musical Molotov cocktails toward the fences."

Let the tossing of Molotovs begin.