Read Tom Morello's fascinating South African Diary

Live Dates • February 16, 2014

Read Tom Morello’s fascinating South African Diary

Page ONE in my notebook of 250 songs I hope to know inside out by the first Cape Town show. #HighHopes

Tom Morello compiled a photo diary from the recent South African tour with Bruce & The E Street Band, shared with us here! Check out his photos below and visit Facebook to read more from Tom’s travels through Cape Town and Johannesburg.

I’ve been trying to get to South Africa for a long time. As a teenager I wrote a letter to the anti-apartheid African National Congress trying to volunteer for Umkhonto we Sizwe, or “Spear Of The Nation”, the ANC’s military wing. I didn’t hear back. So it was with great excitement that I answered the call to join Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on their first ever trip to South Africa. It was an incredible and very moving musical and personal journey. And I took a few photos along the way which you will see below. Just hold the mouse over the individual photo to read the caption. A great big thanks to Bruce and the band for having me along and looking forward to more adventures to come.

In solidarity,
Tom Morello

Saw 13 huge great white sharks off the coast of South Africa today on a ecofriendly sea safari. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat

Apartheid Museum exhibit Cape Town. This bullshit was in effect until the mid ‘90s

Mos Def rocked “Sun City” with The E Street Army in Cape Town. African bro down post show. Cape Town, South Africa

On the dock where boats depart for Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town where #Madiba was in prison for 27 years

“I don’t know how to get there but I’m ready to go.” – me at 16. Finally made it to the birth place of the anti-apartheid revolution. Location Soweto, South Africa

In 1976 over 200 student were massacred by apartheid police right here for raising their fists and singing the people’s national anthem. Today the Morellos sang that same song in their memory

Photo of Nelson Mandela burning his race identifying passbook. This is the first photo you see when entering his house in Soweto. Note the grin on his face

Two very handsome young rabble rousers playing among a pile of stones salvaged from the Soweto Uprising. Stones were all the students had to fight back against armored police vehicles and high powered rifles, yet in the end they prevailed

Incredibly, Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu , two Noble Peace Prize winners, lived on the same street in Soweto. This quote appears on a wall between their homes

Backstage in Johannesburg , preparing to rock the World Cup soccer stadium. Freedom Poetry, Azania, Telecaster. This one is for the fallen, and the children

Having rocked South Africa soundly, time now for safari. #Simba. Location: The bush. Near Johannesburg, South Africa

Flanked by my brother on the right and Steven Biko’s son on the left, chillin’ at the hotel. Steven Biko was a prominent anti-apartheid activist and proponent of non-violence who was tortured to death by South African police. His story was immortalized in the movie Cry Freedom and in the incredible peter Gabriel song “Biko”

One of the most notorious prisons in history— known simply as “Number Four.” Mandela AND Ghandi were held and tortured here. This apartheid hell hole was operative until the mid 1980’s