Tuesday, July 29, 2008

all things bright and foo-tiful

I'm not sure of the last time I went to an "arena" rock show. In the summer in the Buff, there are so many opportunities to see outdoor concerts--many for free--and, throughout the past year, I've been so busy doing tasks related to relocating, Dissertating, new job-adjusting, single-momming and girlfriending that spending my sparse greenbacks on a concert wasn't often in the cards.

I had forgotton all the fun rituals associated with arena rocks shows: I found something cool and cute to wear in case I bumped into Dave Grohl unexpectedly (or, in case I just threw myself on stage at the appropriate moment) and would need to charm him with my wares. I checked and re-checked my purse for tickets and directions to Rochester. I charged the Nano. I packed a cooler of beers. We listened to the Foo Fighters almost all the way to Ro-cha-cha before turning the music off completely to allow for concert mental "prep time." We scoured the streets for a meter and paid 35 cents to park (hell, yeah!). We loaded up the belly at some cute pub. We stood in line (male and female lines, BTW. I had to ditch my nail clippers, tweezers and nail file before entering the venue and the woman security guard felt me up better than my boyfriend had....). We wandered about the arena. We bought merch. We bought a beer. We found our seats which were already good because the venue smaller, but I immediately assessed that this was not a sell-out show so we worked our way past other guards and scored two seats stage left and VERY CLOSE. And then it all began.

The opening acts--Year Long Disaster and Supergrass--played well and briefly. Perfect.
Foos hit the stage at 8:35 and played straight til 10:50. Even more perfect.
They opened with "Let It Die," "The Pretender," "Times Like These" and "No Way Back" without taking a breath. Perfect.

Simply an amazing show. Better than many many others I've witnessed in 25 years (Prince, Pearl Jam, and INXS still hold the top 3, but the Foos have claimed #4. moe. is #5). Grohl is an amazing, funny, quirky and fiercely talented frontman backed by the tightest band I've heard in a long time. Taylor Hawkins is a GREAT drummer. Grohl engaged the crowd all night and consistently showed a side of ol' Nirvana that may have not allowed his full contributions in THAT band to translate past the beleaguered Cobain until now.

Amazing. The last song was "Best of You," performed with such clarity and strength that it gave me goosebumps and tingles in all the right places. For real.

*Sigh*

Rituals for the post-game: sleep late, brew coffee, blog about the night before, listen to the Foos as I write all afternoon while wearing my new Concert-T.

Not a bad way to start the week.

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