Foo Fighters Perform Classic, New Emotional Songs at Bonnaroo

by Julian Spivey

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The Foo Fighters brought their rock act to the 2023 Bonnaroo Arts & Musical festival on the final night of the four-day festival in Manchester, Tenn. with a mixture of classic fan favorites and new songs off their recently released 11th studio album But Here We Are.

I had the pleasure of viewing the set thanks to the live stream via Hulu, which was doubly nice because I’d really wanted to see them in my home state of Arkansas on the Wednesday before but was unable to obtain tickets due to high demand, ticket scalping and the increasingly annoying trouble of the concert ticket buying process.

It was the band’s Bonnaroo debut after their 2021 scheduled performance at the festival was washed out due to heavy rain in the area that caused flooding.

It was an emotional night too, as they all are lately for the band and fans seeing them for the first time following the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022. Josh Freese has taken over drums for the band and did a fantastic job on Sunday night, even if it’s really weird to see someone else hammering away on the set behind Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl on the stage.

The Foos began their Bonnaroo set with “All My Life,” their Grammy-winning 2002 track off One by One. They would follow it up with the hard-rocking “No Son of Mine,” off 2021’s Medicine at Midnight, which was the band’s final album with Hawkins.

The first new song would follow with “Rescued,” the first single off But Here We Are, which came out at the beginning of the month. Much of the album feels like it came apart as a result of Hawkins’ death and in tribute to him. The band described the song and album as: “the first of 10 songs that run the emotional gamut from rage and sorrow to serenity and acceptance, and myriad points in between.” “Rescued” quickly went to No. 1 on the Billboard Rock Airplay chart after its release in April.

Among the other new songs off But Here We Are performed at the festival on Sunday night were “Show Me How,” with Grohl’s daughter Violet joining on vocals and “Under You,” which I think could become a huge hit (or as big of a hit as a rock song can become in 2023) for the band. It has that quintessential Foo Fighters sound and is catchy enough to scream along with.  

Prior to the performance of “Show Me How,” Violet had joined her father on stage for a performance of “Shame Shame,” off Medicine at Midnight, which proved to be a fun Father’s Day moment for the elder Grohl.

Even though I’ve seen it before in person and multiple times between concert streams and concert films it’s always a blast seeing Grohl, guitarist Pat Smear, guitarist Chris Shiflett, bassist Nate Mendel, keyboardist Rami Jaffee and now Freese on drums go through classic song after song spanning more than a quarter-century now of great rock music. The band rifled off terrific hit after hit like “Walk,” “The Pretender,” “Learn to Fly,” “Breakout,” “This is a Call,” “Monkey Wrench” and “Best of You” during the show showcasing pretty much something off every one of their albums.

Hayley Williams, vocalist of Paramore which performed at the festival prior to the Foos, would join the band on stage for a bit of its performance of “My Hero,” though her participation seemed minimal (not sure if it was a sound issue).

One of the most emotional performances of the evening was the stripped-down version of “Times Like These,” which has seen Grohl performing most of the song acapella without the band before bringing them on to rock the house down for the finish. It works as sort of a tribute to their fallen bandmate.

At the end of the set, Grohl performed “Aurora,” off 2001’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose, which he told the packed crowd was Hawkins’ favorite Foo Fighters song. It was on Hawkins’ first album as the band’s full-time drummer.

The band then finished the evening and the festival off the way every Foo Fighters show should come to an end with a fantastic performance of “Everlong,” which is probably universally considered the No. 1 song for the band and with good reason.

It was truly nice to see the band bounce back from tragedy and heartbreak and continue doing what they do best and it’s great they’re continuing with fantastic new music too. 

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