“Well this is nice, this is quaint,” Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl said, taking in the audience Thursday night at the House of Blues in Cleveland, Ohio. He tucked his mane behind both ears like a professor adjusting his reading glasses. It’s been a while since Grohl, 52, could recognize faces from the stage since he mostly performs to thousands in football stadiums.
“How the hell did everyone get tickets for this?” Grohl joked. “I’m just assuming, a good internet connection?”
The spectacular one-off show marked the beginning of Rock Hall weekend. On Saturday, a Beatle will induct all six members — Grohl, guitarists Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, bassist Nate Mendel, and drummer Taylor Hawkins — into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Foos seem legitimately psyched about the distinction. And the gravitas of their induction year, being the first ceremony following two years of pain and devastation, wasn’t lost on them.
“RIP Charlie” was scrawled on Hawkins’ drumkit at the heart of the stage. Longtime fans (which was basically all 1,200 of us) knew the band was grieving the loss of their manager, Andy Pollard. The deferential, melancholic tone fed into the first three songs, forming a kind of hard-rock homily, starting with the heartrending 1999 song “Aurora” — arguably Grohl’s most evocative songwriting — then to 2002’s unrepentant “All My Life,” to the invigorating gust of “Learn to Fly.”
Then, the show took off. “I was fuckin’ born in Ohio,” Grohl bellowed as cheers and fists seized through the air. “I’ve got some roots in this motherfucker.”
They barreled through singalongs like “The Sky Is A Neighborhood,” “My Hero,” and “Walk,” which are exponentially more visceral when you can see the veins popping out on either side of Grohl’s neck choker. For all of the moments of sheer intensity, the real highlight was getting to see all the musical nuances and facial expressions exchanged between the members — the stuff that gets lost in an arena show. It felt like getting to watch a band rehearsal. At one point, Grohl even took a bottle of Jager out of a mini-fridge that was made to look like a Marshall amplifier.
The Foos played songs from their recently released 10th album, Medicine at Midnight, trotting out a trio of backup singers (one of whom was Grohl’s teenage daughter, Violet).
The show featured cliff-hanger hooks and guitar assaults, shamelessly meandering riffs and impromptu solos — most of them by the Iggy-est Foo, drummer Taylor Hawkins — and even one by famed concert photographer, Danny Clinch, who gave a rollicking harmonica solo during a sprawling-to-the-point-of-operatic rendition of “The Pretender.”
This “Prufrock”-”Pretender” was the emotional zenith of the night with its onslaught of big drums and “I will never surrend-ahs” punching into the middle of the trickling, arpeggiated scale.
Hard rock was balanced with disco fever. Grohl determined there was “too much rock” as he was snapping his gum (was he been chewing gum this whole time?) and brought back the backup singers for the DeeGees moment of the night, a cover of Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancin,’” which has been a setlist staple this year.
Taylor Hawkins, who sits atop his hot-pink drumkit, zen, all white teeth and blond hair blowing everywhere, was another highlight. “Watch this, Carole King!” Cue drum solo Hawkins and Grohl traded places for Hawkins drawn out, euphoric rendition of Queen’s “Somebody to Love,” which was particularly apt considering that the Foos inducted Queen into the Hall of Fame in 2001.
Hawkins turned to watch Grohl give a drum solo, crouching at the lip of the stage. Later, he introduced Grohl, who will be inducted into the hall of fame for the second time. “I don’t know when the third’s coming, but I know it is,” Hawkins said. “Is there a Book Hall of Fame?” (Someone in the crowd answered: “The Pulitzer Prize?”)
Since its inception, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been highly contentious. As more ’90s bands become eligible for entry into the hall, there has been no shortage of pettiness and rage, from Trent Reznor saying he “couldn’t give less of a shit” about Nine Inch Nails getting snubbed over the years to Axl Rose’s 1,000-word “open letter” defending his right to not be inducted, to Radiohead abstaining from the ceremony altogether (although none of those hold a candle to the Grateful Dead in 1994, who arrived onstage toting a cardboard cutout of Jerry Garcia, who boycotted the event.)
There’s none of that with the Foo Fighters.
“We’ll be back,” Grohl said at the end of the show, his left eyebrow aloft. “But next time you see us, we’ll be 100 yards away in some big stadium, probably opening for the Chili Peppers.”
Foo Fighters House of Blues Set List:
“Aurora”
“All My Life”
“Learn to Fly”
“No Son of Mine”
“The Sky Is A Neighborhood”
“Shame Shame”
“Breakout”
“My Hero”
“The Pretender”
“Walk”
“You Should Be Dancin’” (BeeGees cover)
“Somebody to Love” (Queen cover)
“Times Like These”
“Young Man Blues” (Mose Allison cover)
“Best of You”
“Everlong”
