Once upon a time the Foo Fighters were the band I’d seen live the most times …then somehow I managed to go twenty three years without crossing paths with Dave Grohl and friends. There’s no real reason why – the band kept churning out the hits, but the increasing venue sizes they performed at as well as schedules not lining up convenient tour dates meant somehow two decades had passed before fate meant I was in Milan with a free evening at the same time they were headlining the idays festival at San Siro’s race course.
My last time seeing them had been at Glasgow Green in 2003, sandwiched between Queens of the Stone Age and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at a show that has gone down in local folklore – not just for the immense line up for the day (which also featured PJ Harvey, The Distillers and Electric Six) but for the fact that a huge swathe of central Scotland’s student population completely misread the weather and ended up with varying degrees of sunburn. Needless to say lessons were learnt, such that with temperatures peaking in the low thirties in Milan liberal suntan lotion was applied throughout.
Opening up for the day were Fat Dog and Idles, acts too eclectic in both musical output and performance that it would be unfair to pigeonhole them under a single genre, but both possessing the undefinable quality of keeping the audience fixated on the stage trying to guess what they’d do next. Idles’ acapella rendition of Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas is You proving to be an especially unexpected moment of bliss in the heat of the Italian summer as the sun slowly disappeared behind the main stage. [Quick word of advice for anyone thinking of going to an outdoor live music event in Italy (or similarly hot): The extra €15 for premium tickets is money well spent, not just for the better views but for the cool created by the shadow of the stage whilst the rest of the crowd suffer in direct sunlight]
Then with plumes of red smoke emerging from the stage the Foo Fighters arrived and launched straight into One by One (just as they had started with twenty three years ago),the iconic chugging raising the temperatures of the expectant crowd even higher. A hits drenched first hour showcased just how many radio friendly hits they had produced over the years; whilst they may end up put in a bracket with similar aged stadium sized rock acts like Guns n Roses and Metallica the closer equivalent would be Queen and the seeming unending barrage of songs you’d forgotten they’d written. That said, the band’s insistence in turning many of their perfect three and a half minute punk rock singles into extended jam sessions did start to grate to a certain extent. Whilst the additional guitar work on Times Like These gave an added depth to the songs, often it felt like additional padding that slowed the songs from reaching the crescendo of their final choruses.
Leading from the front as always was Dave Grohl; a few more grey hairs but still the same frontperson, marvelling at the magnitude of the event he was performing at and reception from the fans despite the fact he must have walked out at similar sized events hundreds of times in his career. Whatever genetic engineering that had been performed to make him the ultimate warrior and protector of the spirit of rock n roll had clearly also led to his aging occurring at a sub-human rate. Not many front persons can so effortlessly combine humour, charisma and compassion, although his insistence on referring to songs from the first three albums as old ones did slightly nag for those of us who still like to believe that they are still the energetic teenagers who embraced those tunes when they were first released.
A mid set jaunt through softer cuts such as Wheels and Big Me (the latter backed by a showreel composed of what appeared to be clips from all of the band’s iconic music videos) came as a pleasant change of gear from the grunge infused rockers that had preceded them. A subsequent small side step through songs from the band members’ pre-Foo Fighters careers veered towards self indulgent over entertainment, although the adrenaline charge rush through Monkey Wrench and Breakout straight afterwards more than made up for this.
By the end of the main set Grohl’s voice had begun to croak, but the way the crowd carried the singing of Best of You was a moment that left hairs tingling. With a couple of songs cut from the planned encore the strangest aspect if the show was that not a single track from recent album Your Favourite Toy had made the cut, not that anyone in the crowd seemed to notice as an emotionally heavy finale of Everlong brought the evening to its climax. Not many acts can match the poignancy of closing a show by asking “If anything could ever be this good again”
The last time I’d seen the Foos live they were still ascending to the top level of live music performers; the success of One by One had elevated them to arena headliners, but the final step up to being able to sell out stadiums off their own back was still a few years in the future. With a truckload of alternative rock anthems whose timeless qualities will see them embraced for generations to come their position in the rock echelons is secure – and a reason why a twenty three year gap to see them was far too long.
Were you at Milan to see the Foo Fighters? Have you caught them as they rock stadiums across the world on the Take Cover tour? Make sure to leave a comment below or subscribe for more live music reviews straight to your inbox.
Foo Fighters performed:
All My Life
The Pretender
Times Like These
Rope
Stacked Actors
My Hero
Learn to Fly
These Days
Walk
This Is a Call
No Son of Mine/Ace of Spades
Wheels
Marigold
Big Me
La Dee Da
Run
Invincible / Seven / One Headlight / Manimal / Tap Dancing in a Minefield
Monkey Wrench
Breakout
Play Video
The Sky Is a Neighborhood
Aurora
Best of You
***
Exhausted
Everlong
Alex Reviews Gigs 
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