Dave Grohl pays tribute to Beaconsfield miner Todd Russell amid energetic Sydney show
MUSIC
Foo Fighters
★★★★
Accor Stadium, November 10
Reviewed by Shamim Razavi
The best rock shows are an irony-free zone, but irony doesn’t leave quietly. Getting 60,000 of us to drop our laconic cool and dissolve into one roaring mass takes both craft and graft, and Dave Grohl supplies both: veins up, voice shredded, hauling the stadium towards a collective sincerity by the relentless force of his own.
In the first of three hours, Foo Fighters pack in more great songs and burn more energy than most bands muster in an entire show, and the crowd repays the effort with the highest compliment it can give: intensity from the opening bar that barely pauses for breath.
Mercifully, the second hour does relent in pace and volume. An acoustic middle section opens with an impromptu Stairway to Heaven, played to calm the crowd while a medical emergency is dealt with near the stage. The quieter arrangements allow a different kind of intensity to emerge, culminating in a poignant rendition of Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners on the day of Todd Russell’s death. The bond between those trapped Tasmanians – whose first request was for water and Foo Fighters music – and these rock gods reveals the band’s softer side. Hearing Grohl call them his heroes is a moving reminder that the strength and joy he projects onstage have been hard won.
That Foo Fighters remain so strong after more than 30 years is also a tribute to the calm yin the rest of the band provide to Grohl’s fevered yang.
New drummer Ilan Rubin is Grohl’s closest match in animal energy, but the band’s anchor is rhythm guitarist Pat Smear, whose partnership with Grohl stretches back to their Nirvana days. Smear’s assured presence and easy geniality are a critical, if often overlooked, part of the band’s success.
Those 30 years have taken their toll on Grohl’s voice – the sweetness of his vocal on first single This is a Call has curdled into a scream – but live it only adds to the raw energy. That energy rebounds for a rousing final stretch closing with a heartfelt Best of You, followed by an appropriately long encore of Everlong. As 60,000 voices sing the final refrain of that epic, it is clear irony has not gone quietly – but it has left the building.
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