Just three days after their secret show announcement, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters took the stage at the Showbox Friday night for what turned out to be a special performance of classic hits, deep cuts, and eclectic covers.
The four hour-long gig began with a screening of the Seattle episode of the band’s ongoing HBO documentary series, Sonic Highways, which captured the group’s efforts at recording a new song while immersing the viewer in nearly five decades of city’s musical history. Mere minutes after the credits rolled, the Foos hit the stage and wasted no time kicking things off with “Winnebago.” The pace was unrelenting as “Feast or Famine” came next followed by “Learn to Fly.” In fact it was a full 45 minutes until Grohl stepped to the mike to deliver the perfunctory, “Hey, how ya doin’?” to the 1,000 or so in attendance.
Enthusiasm might as well have been the watchword of the night. All evening long, the crowd, some of whom who had waited upwards of five hours to purchase a ticket, kept the wooden floors of the Showbox bouncing. For a group who can sell out the Gorge without any real effort, the move to play a smaller venue like the Showbox carries with it danger of being viewed as an intricate promotional gimmick. While they may have been playing to most receptive audience possible, they managed to avoid that particular pitfall by keeping their heads down and playing their asses off.
The Seattle episode of Sonic Highways focused a great deal on Robert Lang Studios where the first Foo Fighters album was recorded, and the band leaned heavily on that collection of material. “Exhausted” and “For All the Cows” received particularly enthusiastic responses. But it wasn’t until about the two-hour mark that the band really loosened up. “This is when I start having a little fun,” Grohl admitted. Not many groups wait until the third hour of their set to, and I quote, “Get the party started,” but then again, the Foos have always marched to the beat of their own drummer, or, as has sometimes been the case, drummers.
For the next thirty minutes, the group transitioned from one of the biggest bands on the planet to one of the best cover groups around. The Rolling Stones’ disco classic “Miss You” came first, followed by Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love,” Tom Petty’s “Breakdown,” and finally the Queen & David Bowie smash, “Under Pressure.” Through it all, Grohl assumed a sort of devil may care attitude. At one point he even left the stage to grab a shot from the bar before wading in to share a moment with the masses pressed at the front.
Just before resuming the rest of the show, the band was interrupted by producers Butch Vig and Barrett Jones who crashed the stage and demanded they perform “Subterranean,” the song on their latest album written and recorded in the city. The move came off a bit contrived, but as it turned out, the song was legitimately not in the setlist. In spite of never having performing it live, the band delivered a spot-on rendition.
As expected, the night ended with a performance of the band’s most recognizable hit, “Everlong.” With his self-assumed role as the leading voice of rock and roll purism—along with his media ubiquity—it can sometimes be easy to disregard or even forget just how good Grohl and his band are at what they do. While Saturday night might have been another vehicle for Grohl to promote his forays into the world of filmmaking, it was the music that mattered most.
