When Foo Fighters announced their UK tour last year; I immediately took to twitter laughing that their UK tour was in fact 3 dates in England, 2 in London, 1 in Manchester. I was disappointed that no Scottish date was announced. Then I was round at my parents for dinner and was telling them about it, when Dad suggested we go down to the Manchester for the gig there. I've never delibrately been so far to a gig before but thought that should be good especially as I was really digging the new album at the time "Conrete and Gold".
Fast forward 8 months and the gig was finally upon us. Being a stadium gig and the fact that the Foos gigs last for ages, the first band was on at half 5. So we missed most of their set but caught a few of The Cribs catchy songs which were not bad. Next on was Wolf Alice. The do seem like a hype band amongst the alternative music press. Personally I didn't think the sound setup was that good for them which didn't do them any favours. They were ok but I can't see myself investigating their stuff any further. During this set amazingly the stadium was lucky to be even quarter full. It wasn't until a late surge in the 45 minute build up to the Foos that the stadium reached capacity with an estimated 70,000 in attendence tonight.
When the Foos came on, the place just erupted. In terms of noise and people just completley going mental this was right up there. They started with "All my Life", then my personal favourite "Learn to Fly" and then an extended version of "The Pretender". These three songs went down an absolute storm and I was absolutley beaming. Then they started to do something in songs which did begin to annoy me. The next song was off the latest album "Concrete and Gold" and that was "The sky is a neighbourhood". After a minute of the song they do this pause for effect. The audience then clap thinking this was just a short interlude. Where in fact its part of the song. I like this for impact sometimes but this became a feature in probably 5-6 songs. Some pauses lasted maybe up to a minute with Grohl trying to get the biggest reaction possible out of the crowd.
But then they would do things like the extended version of "Rope" and I would be happy again. Great to hear songs like "These Days", "Walk" and "Breakout" too as these are also some of my favourite Foos songs. I was quite surprised that they only played 4 songs off the new record. "Run" went down particularly well, along with "Sky is a neighbourhood". But "Sunday Rain" and especially "Dirty Water" felt so flat live. And an otherwise bouncy crowd was static for these songs. Its funny because when I did an album review of C & G, "Dirty Water" was one of my favourite songs but the quiet to loud parts just really did not work live. Even so I thought they should be playing more songs than that from the album. But the thing is its not like they are just playing the old songs back like when they were recorded for the albums. They are taking these songs apart and making live versions of the tracks. Some working better than others.
Dave Grohl prove once again that he is one of the best frontmen in rock music at the moment. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand the whole night. They would literally have done anything he asked them to do. And the way he ran about the stage working each section of the crowd makes you think he would do well at a local parkrun on a Saturday morning which take place at 9.00 in England, 9.30 in Scotland. Although he did say he'd play a song from each album tonight but no sign of anything from Sonic Highways? Which I thought was one of their better ones, albiet a bit short.
As much as I liked the jams in the likes of "Rope", I couldn't help but think how much better the Red Hot Chili Peppers are at jamming/extending songs but at the same time I am glad that the Foo Fighters are doing this as afterall they have been going for so long they need to do things to keep things fresh which I can imagine can be challenging when you have been going for nearly 25 years.
Overall a good night and I'm glad my Dad convinced me to go. It's not the best gig I have been to this year but still a very enjoyable gig, especially as I knew most of the songs they played. They did a cracking encore of "Times like These", "This is a call" and of course finishing on "Everlong".
Set list
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