Chris Schellpfeffer
Unlike the Packers, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters totally know how to use a bye week.
Fueled by a 10-day break between full shows — the bulk of which, apparently, they spent hooked up to a battery the size of California — Grohl and company roared into the Kohl Center on Tuesday night, bringing an energy that was as infectious as it was long-lasting. It started immediately, with Grohl unleashing a primal-scream peppered version of ‘Run,” the second tune from Concrete and Gold, the Fighters’ ninth and latest disc.
Anyone who thought this tour was going to lean hard on the new disc was disabused quickly. Instead, the band’s set doubled as an extensive and egalitarian nostalgia tour through the Foo Fighters’ deep catalogue, reaching all the way back to the band’s 1995 self-titled debut (“I”ll Stick Around”) and several cuts from The Colour and the Shape. Grohl spent way more time shredding than jawing with the crowd, but when he did, he waxed earthy and approachable, calling up to the Kohl Center’s upper decks to exhort some ass-shaking.
Endless waves of sonic fury can wear down even the most enthusiastic audience, but Grohl and company seemed to know when and where to change it up, dropping in enough emotional twists to manage the mood. Things like drummer Taylor Hawkins singing “Cold Day in the Sun” from a 15-foot hydraulic platform that lifted his drum set above the stage. Or Grohl dedicating the slow-building “Times Like These” to Butch Vig, the legendary Madison producer who produced the Foos’ Wasting Light and, of course, Nirvana’s Nevermind.
In the end, the band played for a whopping three hours, unleashing more than 20 songs capped off by a blistering rendition of “Best of You” (It’s our “Free Bird,” Grohl, quipped) and a four (!) song encore. Any way you cut it, that’s what we call supersizing your experience.