Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Foo Fighters - The Roxy (2.7.2011)

After the first two Foo shows being on Fridays, I assumed this was the start of a trend of weekend shows. I was shocked that I'd get another dose as soon as Monday!  Some of Dave's tweets were...
- "Thank you  Dragonfly....that was a blast"
-"Good morning! Ah...another day, another game of hide and go tweet..."

Then Sunday morning he sent this flyer (with the part showing the location folded up)
Seeing that Scream was to be part of the lineup was very special. Dave played drums for Scream in the 80s before joining Nirvana. Franz Stahl (of Scream) was also in the original lineup of Foo. After hearing of a secret show happening at the Roxy Monday and this flyer, I was pretty positive that had to be the destination. I knew the Club Rox members (Roxy VIP club) were allowed to start lining up at 11 A.M. I headed down around that time when a friend told me people were starting to line up already (including scalpers paying homeless people to stand in line). This was not what the band wanted at all. By 1 P.M. the line was close to 100 people. I made some other good friends in line. We would hold each other's spots while we went to feed parking meters, use the restroom or get food/drinks. Also met some people to go to shows with and heard all sorts of stories (including one kid who's seen Prince 150-200 times?! Crazy!) Around 3 P.M. the much-anticipated white limousine pulled up. Many people ran over to get pictures with it. Fans wondered if the band would arrive in it, but it was driven by one of their friends/roadies.



 Dave, however, arrived on one of his Harleys.



Before the show, I went to get some food and hit the restroom in the Rainbow Bar & Grill next door. This location holds quite a bit of rock n' roll history. This is where Lemmy continues to drink on a frequent basis, is where John Belushi spent his final evening, and Led Zeppelin were frequent clients. They were definitely filming more than just some footage for the documentary. My guess is that the footage from this show will be for their first live music video. Capacity for the Roxy is 500, but they only gave out 200 wristbands (the other 300 spots are reserved for friends/family/VIP) It was the first show that was 18+ so there were some younger kids as well as kids w/ Moms (I remember those days at Foo shows...)  I ended up front row between Dave and Pat.  Having all the cameras around definitely made everyone act out a bit more. Dave was hamming it up, and the crowd was much rowdier than usual. Scream opened, which being a hardcore punk band (from D.C.) definitely riled the crowd up. Then, Bob Mould took the stage and was followed by Foo.









Once again, they played straight through the new album without really stopping. I like the album better and better the more I hear it. It has a great variety of songs/tempos/dynamics, and I honestly think it will be one of their best. In previous years they explored more of their acoustic side, but this is back to their loud rock roots. They changed a few songs from the previous evening. Several times Dave would come solo on the edge of the stage directly in front of me. One downfall of this show was that there was a ledge on the edge of the stage that stuck out about 4 inches and hit mid-thigh. During Wattershed and This is a Call, the members of Scream got in the audience, getting them more rowdy and moshing, and everyone pushed forward. For several days I had bruises from this (great location...just poor stage design). During the final song, the bassist from Scream came crowd-surfing over my shoulder basically falling on stage and Dave came right by him to solo yet again. It was definitely up close and personal! 







After the show Taylor's drum tech made a point to give me a drumstick (I have several from Dave playing drums for TCV, but none from Taylor playing for Foo!) On the way out I ran into some other Foo friends, had a picture taken by OC Weekly, and drove home. Another wonderful evening of Foo. 



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