I’ve been on the fence about the Foo Fighters for years. I think I started losing interest in them when my old boss started asking to borrow my CDs because she kept hearing them on the local alt-rock radio station. Clearly I was no longer in the Foos target audience.
The Foo Fighters played the final slot on the last night of Lollapalooza this year and – truthfully – going into it I was thinking, “This might be a chance to duck out early and, if I’m feeling really ambitious, maybe I can even start my drive back to Ohio”. So glad I decided to hang around – Dave & co. brought their A+ game to Chicago and rocked as if the band had just formed at the beginning of the year and had something to prove (which, of course, they don’t). They could easily have mailed this one in and the crowd would still have eaten it up.
The absolute greatest live concert moment of 2011 for me came just as the Foo Fighters started “My Hero”, a song that I thought I was sick of hearing. The black skies completely opened up and it rained hard. For half a second I thought, “Should I retreat and try to find some cover?” but then realized that a) there was no cover to be found and b) even if there was cover, I’d have to push my way out of the crowd that was probably 30,000 deep. But as the skies dumped buckets of rain not only on the crowd but on the stage, it only fueled everybody up for a huge sing-a-long and the Foos never thought for a minute about stopping.
Here’s some compilation footage I found, including a snippet of “My Hero”.
Have seen them 3 times now in the past decade and each time the crowds are bigger and the Foos step it up more every time. Also, their latest album may well be their best. Not many bands can say that after nearly two decades together.