Foo Fighters, Etihad Stadium. 19th June 2018

It’s been 23 years since I first saw the Foos... 23 years!! Back then all the talk was how the drummer from Nirvana had no place at the front of the stage. That night in ‘95 Grohl proved the detractors wrong and has continued to do so ever since. It’s pretty simple, Dave knows how to have fun. Screw the negativity, grab a guitar and play it loud! It needs to be loud in the Etihad tonight, I’ve said it before but stadiums make crap music venues and the sound suffers, but Foos know what they’re doing in spaces like this now. I saw them make Glastonbury feel intimate last summer, so tonight is a breeze. You want hits? Here have over 2 hours of them. You want proper crowd interaction, not the rehearsed rubbish? Dave is your man. They’re nothing if not crowd pleasers, but that’s not to say they won’t roll out ‘a few off the new album’, which admittedly is tough going. It’s balanced though and even the middle section of familiar covers lands well. Highlights though are anything that let’s Taylor Hawkins go nuts, the man is a machine, I’m amazed his drum kit withstands the punishment. Foos for me though aren’t really a band to fall in love with, they’re just nice blokes who play no nonsense rock n roll bloody well and if you have to watch any band in a stadium, you can’t do much better. 23 years though, I’m getting old!