Firstly, before I delve into this review. I must admit that I am and already was a huge Foo Fighters fan before seeing them and at times it may seem that I am arselicking them a tad. This is because they were simply that good.
There are not many things that I am willing to wake up at 6.30am for not many at all, especially on a Sunday morning. However, I found myself dragging my broken body up to travel to the National Bowl in Milton Keynes. Having previously been to the Bowl for The Prodigy concert, I knew what to expect and knew that it would be essential to travel from Manchester early in order to get one of the coverted Front Pit wristbands and with the Bowl holding 65,000 people we were eager to make sure we got one! We arrived at The Bowl around 12 collected our green wristbands and went to find a place to kill some time. Myself and my mate Tom managed to find a pub just over the road from the Bowl selling two meals for £10 (much better value than the burger vans outside and in the bowl £4.50 for a burger!) and ate and had a few beers whilst we waited for the gates to open.
When we arrived back at the Bowl the gates had opened earlier than anticipated and it was filling up quite nicely. We sorted ourselves with some merchandise and took our place in the front pit and attempted to make ourselves as comfy as possible for the many hours wait before the Foos came on.
The First act to come on stage was the DJ for the day and member of Husker Du Bob Mould. This was going to be the first of many times Bob was going to come on stage and play some songs for us. He managed to raise a few laughs with his comical dancing and moving around whilst he blasted out some tunes. Overall the crowd seem a bit flat as for many of the people Bob was not playing tunes that they knew and apart from the occasional huge hit there was very little appreciation for him from the crowd. Also, Mould didn't have a mic for some unknown reason so there was little chance for him to engage the crowd either.
The Hot Rats -5/10
The Hot Rats are half of the popular British rock pop group Supergrass. This project combines the Lead singer Gaz Coombes and the drummer Danny Goffey. The duos sideproject is a coverband and therefore we were treated to covers such as "Queen Bitch" made famous by David Bowie amongst many others. The Hot Rats weren't necessarily bad so to speak but they just lacked the prescence needed to get myself or the rest of the croud going. Their covers were polished but nothing special and I would have much prefered if Gaz and Danny had been doing Supergrass covers as I feel the two would have been best suited to staying in the band that gave them their name
Jimmy Eat World -7/10
Jimmy Eat World manage to liven the crowd up after the flatness following The Hot Rats. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Jimmy Eat world and their set therefore failed to liven me up apart from what felt obligitary involvement in their most famous song 'The Middle' In conclusion, Jimmy Eat World appear to be a good live act if your into that kinda music, they managed to interact with the crowd fairly well. Personally it just wasn't for me.
Biffy Clyro -9/10
I was eager to see how Biffy would be live as I'd previously missed out on seeing them before and this was the weekend before their headline slot at Sonisphere. All I can say is that they didn't dissapoint. As soon as the opening strains from 'The Captain' went up the crowd went mental. I was taken aback with how much energy and stage prescence Biffy had. Their setlist was the perfect mix of heavy stuff such as 'That Golden' Rules and powerful singalongs such as 'Mountains', 'Many of Horror', 'Bubbles' and 'Who's got a match?' Quite simply Biffy were awesome. They managed to get the croud going so much that unfortunatly in one of the pits a lad managed to break his leg. This was the only downside of what for me was a brilliant set. Truely the best support act I've ever seen! I hope that this followed by their Sonisphere headlining slot may be the start of a huge rise for Biffy as they have all the ingredients to make it to the top. I will be suprised if within the next 4-5 years they will not be doing their own stadium shows. I urge any of you if you get the chance to see Biffy then do!
Foo Fighters - 10/10
Well Quite simply put the Foo Fighters are the best live act I've ever seen. From the moment Dave ran on stage to a tsunami of clapping,screaming and craziness from the crowd he and the rest of the band never looked back. Sprinting down the runway which lead out into the audience to acknowledge them and imploring them for more pandemonium. The Foos began their set with two songs from latest album 'Wasting Light' and let me tell you from the moment the pounding of the drums on opening song 'Bridges Burning' 2 hours and 45 minutes of mayhem,singalongs and beer chugging had begun. The Foos ensured that despite a back catalogue of over 100 songs encompassing 7 studio albums, The Foo Fighters play all the croud pleasers that you'd expect to hear such as 'The Pretender,' 'Breakout,' 'My Hero' and 'Monkey Wrench' amongst many more whilst giving the more clued up fans some lesser known songs such as 'Generator,' 'Skin and Bones' and 'This is a Call.'
As the Foos continue to smash out the hits, they have all 65,000 people eating out of the palm of their hands hanging on the every last word of Dave and going metal for each song (special mention to the guy croudsurfing in a dinghy who got White Limo dedicated to him video below) each song turned into a mass sing-a-long most notably 'Best of You' in which the fans continued to sing the 'Woahs' long after the band had finished playing the song. Leaving the stage after the riotous performance of 'All My Life,' the crowd were treated to a live back stage video of the fans with Grohl using his fingers to indicate how many songs he was going to play in the encore with cheers getting loud with the more fingers he put up. We were promised 5. We got 6.
Returning to the stage Grohl ran down the run way to a smaller stage behind the sound desk to play for the fans who weren't lucky enough to get into the front pit. What followed what an solo version by Grohl of 'Wheels' during which he paid homage to the UK fans and talked about how much the moment meant to him. Then a half solo version of 'Times like these' followed. The Foos then preceded to roll out the red carpet with special guest appearances from Seasick Steve and John Paul Jones. This lead to Grohl going on the drums for a cover of Seasick Steve's 'Back in the dog house' The Foos then ended their set with one final singalong of their timeless classic 'Everlong.'
What made this gig so special for me apart from the hoards of hits and the crowd atmosphere being orchestrated by Grohl was that you can see that the Foo Fighters love what they are doing and this is no more evident then in their frontman. Every word uttered by Grohl is followed by a huge grin that says that he is just as happy to see the fans as they are to see him and he is more than willing to please them in any way possible (one instance being him egged on by the crowd to chug a bottle of beer any time he attempted to take a drink.) As the gig went on I found myself developing more and more love for Grohl and the band as they strived to please everyone present. One way of doing this was by jamming throughout the gig meaning songs like Stacked Actors that are 4 minutes long on the studio album become 10 minute long masterpieces.
In conclusion The Foos were everything I expected and more, despite the introduction of special guests being a nice touch, I personally would have much prefered it if the Foos would have reeled more songs off their own. All in all an amazing night. Not even the woeful wait to get out of the Bowl could dampen my mood as I await for more Foo Fighters dates to see them again
Foo Fighters Played :
1. Bridge Burning
2. Rope
3. The Pretender
4. My Hero
5.Learn to Fly
6, White Limo
7.Arlandria
8. Breakout
9. Cold Day in the Sun (Taylor Hawkins on Vocals)
10.Long Road to Ruin
11. Stacked Actors
12. Walk
13. Dear Rosemary (with Bob Mould)
14. Monkey Wrench
15. Let it Die
16. These Days
17. Generator
18. Best of You
19. Skin and Bones
20. All My Life
Encore
21.Wheels (Dave Solo)
22. Times like These (Dave Solo for beginning)
23. Young Man Blues
24. Back in the Dog House (Seasick Steve Cover) (with seasick steve and John Paul Jones)
25. This is a Call
26. Everlong
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