FOO FIGHTERS // BJCC

FOO FIGHTERS // BJCC

On Thursday, Oct. 26th, the Foo Fighters made their long-awaited return to Birmingham, Alabama. After canceling three shows earlier in the week, the band was back in full swing ready to impress attendees at the BJCC Arena.

Opening the show was Derbyshire, England-based band The Struts. Their style can best be described as a raucous, modern day, hair metal band mixed with Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and Michael Jackson influences. They played for an hour while fans filled the arena, anxiously awaiting the next band coming their way.

Foo Fighters came on stage at 8:45 p.m. and played until 11:45 p.m. In those energetic three hours, there were surprise guests, conversations about influential artists, crowd participation, and a good bit of Dave Grohl running around the stage.

The curtain fell down from the stage to one of the band’s new songs “Run” from their latest release Concrete and Gold, quickly followed by hits “All My Life,” “Learn To Fly,” and “The Pretender.”

Also from Concrete and Gold, the band performed “The Sky Is a Neighborhood,” “Sunday Rain,” with drummer Taylor Hawkins on vocals, “Make It Right,” and “Dirty Water.”

From their 2011 release Wasting Light, the band performed five tracks including “Walk,” “Rope,” (which included an extended outro on both guitar and drums), “These Days,” “White Limo,” and “Arlandria.”

During the hits “My Hero” and “Times Like These,” the audience saw Grohl perform a solo during the songs’ intros, later being joined by the rest of the group.

Perhaps the biggest moment of the night came from one lucky fan named Jeremy. He held a song through the first half of the show which read “Dave, it’s my birthday. Can I play “Big Me” on guitar?”

Grohl pulled him on stage and asked him if he really knew how to play it. Yes, Jeremy knew how to play “Big Me” by the Foo Fighters and he did so in front of thousands of die-hard fans.

The band continued throughout the night playing hits like “Monkey Wrench,” “Best Of You,” “Breakout,” “I’ll Stick Around,” “Let It Die,” and “Cold Day In The Sun” (sung by Hawkins and dedicated to his cousin.)

During band introductions came a medley of popular songs like “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, “Jump” by Van Halen, and “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones

After the encore, Grohl told a story about being a little kid and loving punk music. He recalled an album by the Louisville, Kentucky based band, Squirrel Bait, he would listen to while doing his chores. Squirrel Bait’s former singer, Peter Searcy, was on hand to perform an old song “Sun God” with Grohl. The smile on his face was huge.

The evening ended with “Everlong” the band’s biggest song to date.