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Live Review
by Droog Wankford Radion
21-8-2003
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| Foo Fighters split! ...For a year, mind! |
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Live: Foo Fighters
Mean Fiddler, London
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Foo Fighters rock it with prog-resolve
Having progressed to topping a couple of arena stands and headlining festivals, Foo Fighters retraced their steps for the sake of fans and listeners of BBC’s Radio 1. The place may be smaller than what they’ve got used to now but the band never plays anything short of its full potential and tonight is no exception. Although the live versions are getting further from the recorded ones…
Newly wed Dave Grohl is not letting anything interfere with his largin’-it-all rocking. He is passionate about songs, loves his music, sounds, performing and the whole interactive audience-band vibes. From the moment they fire the first chord, it works like the best Mustang ’65: powerful, torquey, loud, fast, dynamic, vibrant… Cosy and intimate! The band members don’t usually stand so close to each other in their rehearsal room, even.
‘Times Like These’ opens the evening and it comes with a fat instrumental break that borders on prog; ‘Monkey Wrench’ goes even more prog-tastic that some fans appeared to have problem taking in all of its 7 minutes! It’s like Grohl and co. have become even more in thrall of the cosmic-rocking of the Led Zeppelin? Well, in our last interview with all four members, drummer Taylor Hawkins said that ‘One By One’ should have been “more progressive”; perhaps the next one will actually be?
‘My Hero’ restores popular order with its warm and urgent tempo, but there are even more Zepp-esque moments throughout the evening, as well as some choice cuts, such as ‘Weenie Beenie’ from the debut disc of 1995. The pace gets slowed down somewhat with ‘Learn To Fly’ before hitting another ‘pedal-to-the-metal’ with ‘Low’ and so on… To the satisfying finale for this select lot who get old favourites in a place that holds hundreds rather than a dozen thousand and where the sound are crammed into the walls quicker and without any delayed reverberation.
Foo Fighters are undoubtedly one of the finest rocking outfits around and their shows are spectacularly enjoyable and yet there’s always been a feeling of… not complete gratification. The crux being – lack of invention, being far from any cutting edge; in effect, barely pushing the envelope of hard rocking. It is a tad too much melodic, too pop-rocky, too radio friendly, not salacious enough. Sure, it simply reflects Grohl’s character, that of a very nice man. He actually is one of the most convivial beings in the biz.
But then, at the end of the show he said that this was the last show the band would play London as they were splitting up. Shock, horror, history! Wait, he continued, “Although we will be back for a reunion next year!”
Droog Wankford Radion
21-8-2003
Foo Fighters’ album ‘One By One’ is available now on Roswell/BMG
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