{"id":7150,"date":"2026-10-05T02:33:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T02:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/?p=7150"},"modified":"2026-10-05T02:33:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T02:33:25","slug":"bruce-springsteen-headlines-activist-heavy-festival-as-trump-opponents-mobilize-ahead-of-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/?p=7150","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen Headlines Activist-Heavy Festival as Trump Opponents Mobilize Ahead of Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Springsteen headlined the inaugural \u201cPower to the People\u201d festival Saturday at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, bringing together major musicians, activist organizations and voter-registration efforts roughly one month before the midterm elections.<\/p>\n<p>The sold-out event was organized by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and featured Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Killer Mike, Jack Black, Brittany Howard, Dropkick Murphys and numerous other performers. Organizers described its mission as celebrating \u201cpeace, justice, solidarity, music and community action,\u201d while encouraging civic participation and voter turnout. A portion of ticket proceeds benefited VoteRiders and HeadCount. AP News<\/p>\n<p>Politics nevertheless played a prominent role throughout the day. Springsteen opened his headlining set with \u201cStreets of Minneapolis,\u201d written in response to the deaths of Ren\u00e9e Good and Alex Pretti involving federal immigration officers. He praised people who had protested in Minnesota and later urged the Maryland crowd, \u201cLet them hear you in Washington.\u201d AP News<br \/>\n<span class=\"ellipsis\" id=\"ellipsis-240934579\">...<\/span><span class=\"rmwp-button-wrap\" id=\"rmwp-button-wrap-240934579\" style=\"display: none;\"><button name=\"read more\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"rmwpButtonAction( '240934579', 'READ MORE', 'READ LESS' )\">READ MORE<\/button><\/span><div class=\"rmwp-toggle \" id=\"rmwp-toggle-240934579\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\nAway from the stages, attendees could visit a \u201cFreedom Village\u201d featuring organizations including the ACLU, Farm Aid, Oxfam and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Other performers explicitly encouraged participation in November\u2019s elections. Rapper Killer Mike urged attendees to vote in local contests and hold elected officials accountable. AP News<\/p>\n<p>The festival also included several high-profile collaborations. Joan Baez joined Springsteen, while Springsteen, Morello, Dave Matthews and Nathaniel Rateliff performed together. Jack Black appeared with a young backing band for a Black Sabbath tribute, and Morello was joined by artists including Serj Tankian, Chuck D, Flavor Flav and Dave Grohl. AP News<\/p>\n<p>Not every performer framed the gathering as an instruction about how people should vote. Taylor Momsen told the Associated Press she was not there to dictate anyone\u2019s political choices, instead emphasizing community involvement and participation. AP News<\/p>\n<p>What the event demonstrated most clearly was how music, activism and electoral participation increasingly overlap. The festival was officially organized around broad civic themes, but many of its performers openly criticized government policies and used their stage time to encourage political engagement ahead of November.                               <\/div><div class='rmwp-toggle-end'><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Springsteen headlined the inaugural \u201cPower to the People\u201d festival Saturday at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, bringing together major musicians, activist organizations and voter-registration efforts roughly one month before the midterm elections. The sold-out event was organized by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and featured Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7152,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions\/7152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}