Foo Fighters Show Memphis Why They're Rock's Best Band of Last Two Decades

by Julian Spivey
The Foo Fighters gave ample proof as to why they are the best rock & roll band of the last two decades on Thursday, May 3 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis with a killer almost three-hour set featuring greatest hits, new stuff and a lot of laughs in between.
​
The show was originally supposed to take place last year but was postponed due to Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl’s mom being ill. The band more than made up for the more than half year postponement.

The show kicked off with “Run,” from the group’s 2017 release Concrete and Gold, one of the hardest rocking songs in their repertoire. When I first heard it as the first single off the record last year I was a little bit disappointed. I didn’t care as much for the harder sound. However, I can say seeing it live really does give it a different life. It’s a good way to begin a night of rock & roll.

The Foo Fighters frontloaded the first hour of their show with an incredible order of “All My Life,” “Learn to Fly” (which was my introduction to the group many years ago), “The Pretender,” “The Sky is a Neighborhood” (my favorite track off their newest album) and “Rope.” It’s crazy to think a band could have such a stellar amount of songs that they can stick these powerhouses in the first quarter of their set and keep the crowd’s attention throughout the entire evening.

Following “Rope” was a hyper-extended drum solo by the excellent Taylor Hawkins, which was to lead into his vocal on “Sunday Rain” – a somewhat rare vocal for him – but, unfortunately his mic was turned off and Grohl stepped into the vocalist role for the first verse. Luckily Hawkins’ mic was turned on in time for him to finish the song. “Sunday Rain” has a cool throwback sound to ‘70s classic rock and shows the group has multiple talented vocalists. Guitarist Chris Shiflett is a talented vocalist in his own right with multiple country albums (yes, you read that correctly) to his name. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the opportunity to show off his vocal skills on Thursday night. He did have a really cool moment in which he invited a teenager onstage for a bit of a guitar riff off.

The Foo Fighters have, almost unbelievably, been active for 23 years (meaning they’re only two years away from Rock & Roll Hall of Fame eligibility and I’d have to believe they are a lock) and have amassed multiple generations of fans over the years, which Grohl brought up during the show. He said he would attempt to perform songs from each of their many albums over the years and came close to succeeding. He would play some older gems like “My Hero” and “Breakout” and newer hits like “These Days” and “Walk” from 2011’s Grammy Album of the Year nominated Wasting Light, which may be the band’s best album overall.

Grohl is known as the nicest guy in music and he’s also potentially the funniest, which made the band introductions a laugh riot. Bassist Nate Mendel played “You’re the One That I Want” from “Grease” for his introduction, which included Grohl perfectly singing the first verse (claiming it’s the only one he knows). Guitarist Pat Smear was introduced with a rip-roaring performance of The Ramones’ classic “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Keyboardist Rami Jaffee, the most recent addition to the band, was introduced by playing the opening piano part to John Lennon’s classic “Imagine” with Grohl wryly tricking the audience into believing they were about to join him in a sing-along of the classic before hilariously performing Van Halen’s “Jump” to the tune. It works surprisingly well.

Drummer Taylor Hawkins was given the chance to perform vocals again during his introduction with a little help from Luke Spiller, the lead singer of the tour’s opening band The Struts, on a cover of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” It was fitting that Spiller took the Freddie Mercury vocals because I felt during the entire opening set that he wanted so badly to be Mercury. It didn’t seem to bother much of the crowd, but it was almost as if he was impersonating Mercury while singing his own stuff during the entire opening set. It was distracting to say the least.

The Foo Fighters finished their set with a kickass foursome of “Times Like These,” in which Grohl began solo and was joined midway through by the rest of the band in one of the evening’s best performances, “Monkey Wrench,” one of the most fun Foo songs to belt out along with the band, a great rocking cover of Mose Allison’s “Young Man Blues” and “Best of You,” one of the band’s biggest hits.

The group would return minutes later for an epic three-song encore that consisted of new song “Dirty Water,” “This is a Call,” the group’s first ever single from 1995 when it was basically just Grohl playing everything and ended the terrific night of rock music with “Everlong,” which is in my opinion the group’s greatest song and one of the 100 essential rock songs of all-time.

Seeing the Foo Fighters end an epic show with “Everlong” was truly one of those concert bucket list moments I’d always hoped to see and the cherry on top of a fantastic night.

---