A few weeks ago I went to a Foo Fighters concert in New York at Madison Square Garden and it was honestly one of the a$s-kickingest shows I’ve seen in a while — I thought the roof was gonna come off the place at various points. While I was in the stands to the side of the stage a couple of my buddies were on the floor and at one point one of them tweeted that the floor of the Garden was actually shaking. That’s how Dave Grohl and his fellow fighters of foo rock. And this was on a Sunday night, no less, when things are generally less unhinged in all facets of life.
So I wasn’t really surprised when I read this this morning, though it did make me stop and go “DAMN!” at the same time.
Anyone who’s witnessed one of Foo Fighters near-three-hour tour dates in support of their worldwide #1, Album of the Year Grammy-nominated Wasting Light knows: They’re the hardest rocking band on the current stadium and arena circuit.
But now there’s geoscientific evidence to prove it: the capacity crowd of 50,000 at the Foos’ December 13 gig at Auckland, New Zealand’s Western Springs Stadium generated actual detectable geological tremors.
Reports the blog Geonet:
Two seismic stations in the Auckland GeoNet seismic network recorded the ground literally rocking to the Foo Fighters gig at Western Springs on Tuesday night. The Herne Bay -HBAZ and Eden Park -EPAZ (with IESE-Auckland Uni) stations are 1.5 and 2km from Western Springs respectively and recorded a strong low frequency signal associated with the Foo Fighters gig…The concert vibrations were recorded as a semi continuous harmonic signal with a peak osculation of 3Hz, ie the ground was shaking 3 times per second in a nice rhythmic motion. There are lulls in the signal between the songs and peaks in signal intensity during the songs.
The cause of the shaking is most likely the weight of the 50,000 fans dancing, as 50,000 fans is equal to around 5,000 tonnes of mass moving(or moshing)on the ground for the duration of the concert. This set up a nice harmonic vibration in the ground which was recorded in our nearby borehole seismometers.
I have felt the power of Dave Grohl and it is real. No one man should have such power, as he will often admit on stage during shows. And FYI, they’re coming to Jazz Fest, along with My Morning Jacket, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, Florence and the Machine, Feist, Janelle Monáe, John Mayer, Tom Petty, The Eagles, Ne-Yo, Al Green…I could truly go on and on — not to mention a bunch of local talent.
JUST SAYIN’!
(Pic via)
