The Nightwatchman album release party

All photos © / Pesky Humans

Tom Morello, the living legend guitarist from Rage Against the Machine, released his solo project's debut album on Tuesday. Following an in-store appearance at Amoeba Records, Morello packed out the Hotel Cafe and assembled a show that could most accurately be described as something between a spectacle and a true extravaganza. If you would have told me that one day I would see Tom Morello, Alanis Morissette, Ben Harper, Jill Sobule, John Sinclair, members of Alice In Chains, Extreme, Motor City 5, Motley Crue, and Cypress Hill sharing a stage in a tiny club, I would have thought you were nuts. Because you are reading this, you can probably guess what happened on Tuesday night.

UPDATE: Over 100 photos just added to the gallery.

This was a really cool and unique show. The Nightwatchman played a short set of blistering protest songs backed by Morello's incredibly dynamic guitar work. Alanis Morissette and Nuno Bettencourt shared a duet of the rarely-played-live Extreme hit "More Than Words". Alanis, ironically, was the only person in the audience who didn't know the words, and had to work from a copy of the lyrics. The duo sounded absolutely beautiful together, though, and they looked like they were really enjoying themselves. What followed was an all-star cast of players including Ben Harper, Mick Mars of Motley Crue, Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains, Cypress Hill, and Wayne Kramer of MC5.

There were a ton of pictures from this show. I will continue to update this gallery throughout the next 48 hours with around 125 total images from the show. Stay tuned.

Enjoy! ©