WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dave Grohl wanted to do a show July 4 at RFK Stadium, so he scheduled a show at RFK Stadium. He wanted to play on a bill with some of the artists who has inspired him and who he worked with on the Sonic Highways project, so he invited them to come along. And after he broke his leg falling off stage at a June show in Sweden, he wanted a giant throne. So he built a giant throne.
“I wasn’t f*cking missing this,” Grohl said during the show. “What do people want on the Fourth of July? People want rock and roll.”
Foo Fighters are a rock and roll band, and Dave Grohl is one of the last true modern day rock and roll frontmen left. So the Northern Virginia native put together a festival inside RFK – a stadium so old at this point it’s either going to survive a nuclear winter or fall into dust if you whisper too loud one of these days – with an eclectic lineup including Joan Jett, Heart, Gary Clark Jr., Trombone Shorty, LL Cool J and D.C. legends Trouble Funk. The band decided to cover Queen’s “Under Pressure.” They had the small D.C. venue 9:30 Club run the event. And they had fireworks booming down East Capitol St NE afterward.
None of these things should have been surprising, but as someone experiencing his first Foo Fighters show after 20 years of hearing their music, I was taken aback all the same.
That’s something that never really resonated with me until I was there listening to them play. Nirvana formed the year I was born. Foo Fighters have now been a band for almost three times as long as Nirvana was around. And yet, I have to admit, I was never a big fan, even as Grohl and company rattled off album after album and hit after hit. I like Grohl, but I’ve always been ambivalent about his band. And yet, as they fired off a five-song opener of “Everlong,” “Monkey Wrench,” “Learn To Fly,” “Something For Nothing,” and “The Pretender,” I was sucked in.
I knew these songs. I knew pretty much everything on the setlist, aside from a couple of tracks off the first album Grohl decided to play to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
The band is as tight as it’s ever been. And to Grohl’s credit, even in a cast he’s a hell of a performer. His voice still sounds good (and I don’t know how he chews gum while singing, but hey, to each his own). He knows how to work the crowd; at one point, he grabbed crutches and walked out along a giant long plank they had built toward the crowd, singing “My Hero” as he thrust his crutches into the air. This may not have been what Grohl imagined when he first put together the July 4 show, but he chose to lean in, cast and all, even branding the event the “Break A Leg” tour.
For much of my life there’s been Foo Fighters; they were on SNL, they were on MTV, they played awards shows, their songs were in movies and on shows. I have friends who have seen them up to a dozen times, and I missed my own chances to see them along the way, figuring I’d get around to it if and when I got around to it because, as we’ve seen now, they’re not going anywhere any time soon.
“You know when I knew Foo Fighters made it?” Grohl asked the audience midway through the set Saturday. “When I turned on D.C. 101 and heard a Foo Fighters song.”
That Foo Fighters song was “Breakout,” off their third album There Is Nothing Left To Lose and comically featured on the Me, Myself and Irene soundtrack.
Of course I knew that song. It was a Foo Fighters song, and I know a lot more of those than I ever thought I did. So I shouldn’t have been shocked when I found myself singing along to that, or to “Best Of You,” the song they opted to close Saturday’s show with. Nor should I have been startled when I wasn’t offended by the idea when Grohl asked the audience, “What do you say? Should we do it next year too?”
If I’m in D.C. for the Fourth of July next year and the Foo Fighters are playing, I might just pick up a ticket. It may have taken me 20 years to see them for the first time, but something tells me it won’t take me 20 years to see them again.
