“Who do you think will win the game tonight?” I joked to my 14-year-old daughter at Denver, CO’s Empower Field at Mile High on Saturday night. “Foo Fighters,” she said without hesitation. She had been to Mile High to see the Broncos play before, but neither she nor I had seen a stadium concert of this scale.
After a kickoff set by Eddie Van Halen offspring Wolfgang Van Halen‘s Mammoth WVH, Chrissie Hynde and her band of talented and handsome young musicians stunned the Mile High crowd with a voice as spry and powerful as it sounded when The Pretenders began a charmed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career in the heart of the London punk scene in the late ‘70s. “She sounds 20,” my daughter beamed after Hynde ripped through “Middle of the Road”.
Moments before Foo Fighters took the stage just shy of 8:00 p.m., the sun sinking from the sky, I thought about being 14 years old myself when Kurt Cobain died in 1994. It was just a few short years after the MTV debut of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had shifted the Earth on its axis. Within a few years, the likes of Nirvana, R.E.M., and Pearl Jam had supplanted the hair metal of the late ’80s as the righteous kings of rock ‘n’ roll. By that point, the idea of stadium rockers telling huge crowds, “I came here to kick some ass!” seemed comical.
30 years later, I put my hand on my 14-year-old daughter’s shoulder and asked her, the biggest Nirvana fan I’ve ever known, if she thought Kurt Cobain would have ever wanted to play stadiums. “No way,” she replied. “He just wasn’t that kind of guy.”
We’ll never know. But we do know that last night was the largest-ever Foo Fighters concert in the United States since Dave Grohl formed the band in the wake of Cobain’s suicide. Grohl amplified that revelation time and again throughout the night, from the very start of the show: His first words to the massive Denver crowd were, “Holy s–t, that’s a lot of people! Are you f—king ready?”
In 30 years, Foo Fighters has transformed from a little alt-punk band whose first album featured Grohl playing all the instruments into, especially with Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, Guns ‘n’ Roses, A Perfect Circle) on drums in place of beloved late member Taylor Hawkins, a heavy-rock, almost-metal, arena-and-stadium warhorse. The band made that evolution clear from its opening song, crowd-energizer “All My Life”, Grohl milking an elongated pause to draw as much noise as possible from the tens of thousands in attendance. “They’re still in the middle of the song; it’s not over,” I felt compelled to explain to my confused kid. Grohl’s methods worked out, and then some (even if similar ploys as the night went on began to feel a little tired).
As fascinated as she was by finally seeing Grohl in person, my daughter was just as excited about seeing Grohl’s old Nirvana bandmate, the legendary Pat Smear (also of the Germs, Adolescents, etc.), on guitar. After all, Smear’s influence as an elder statesman, along with Grohl’s time in Scream before he joined Nirvana, are Foo Fighters’ link to real American punk.
“My mission tonight is to kick your f—king ass all night long,” Grohl said at one point. The crowd cheered, and I recalled my daughter’s comment about Kurt Cobain not being “that kind of guy.” Grohl repeatedly took time during the Foo Fighters’ set to break into hard rock classics, from “Paranoid” to “Enter Sandman” to Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” to The Beatles’ “Blackbird” to Tenacious D’s “Tribute” to a Wolfgang Van Halen-assisted “Hot For Teacher” interlude during “Monkey Wrench”, in order to show how much he loves rock ‘n’ roll in all its many varied forms.
Grohl was at his best during old-school Foo Fighters numbers like “My Hero” and “This Is a Call”, when he didn’t overdo his Brian Johnson scream. Several times, the Foos’ bombastic mouthpiece mentioned “that little Ogden Theater [in Denver] we played in 1995” as a symbol of how Foo Fighters rose ostensibly from a tiny garage rock band to packing arenas and stadiums. The Ogden holds 1,600 people, and a rock band could have one hell of a successful career if it can headline 1,600-capacity venues all over the country, but the point was made.
30 years ago, in the wake of a life-altering loss, Dave Grohl bravely came out from behind the drums and built a mega-star career as frontman for an incredible band that can capture the attention and excitement of tens of thousands of music lovers a night around the world—a band that has now forged an ongoing story of its own stretching far beyond what Nirvana could have imagined.
As we walked out of the stadium after Foo Fighters’ phenomenal “Everlong” encore, my daughter hurriedly asked me, “So, what are your top five concerts now, after tonight?” because, she said, Foo Fighters at Mile High Stadium had just taken over the top spot on her list.
Foo Fighters tour will continue this week with dates in San Diego and Los Angeles. For a complete list of upcoming shows, head here.
Below, check out a selection of photos and watch a fan-shot, front-row video of the majority of Saturday’s Foo Fighters show in Denver.
Foo Fighters – Empower Field at Mile High – Denver, CO – 8/3/24
[Video: Metal & Rock Concerts in 4K]
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