Review: Foo Fighters at the Pepsi Center, 10/9/11

Chip Kalback

Foo Fighters at the Pepsi Center last night

FOO FIGHTERS AT PEPSI CENTER | 10/9/11

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"You guys ready for a long fucking rock show tonight?" Foo Fighters frontman Dave asked the Pepsi Center crowd early in Sunday night's set. "You ready for that shit? Foo Fighters don't fuck around. We don't fuck around. We don't play those eensy-weensy one-hour-and-forty-five-minute shows. We don't do that shit. We got a lot of fucking songs, and we're going to play a lot of fucking songs tonight. I don't know what bands you see, but if they don't play for two and a half fucking hours, I don't fucking like them, you know what I'm saying? I'm not going to walk off the stage until I feel like I'm going to fucking puke. Just so you know."

Chip Kalback

Foo Fighters at the Pepsi Center last night. More Foo Fighters Denver photos.

With that, Grohl and company delivered on his promise, and considering how much running around and headbanging Grohl was doing, it's kind of surprising he didn't throw up. The guy's as frenetic a frontman as they come. And while he was Nirvana's drummer, trying to imagine him playing drums now just doesn't seem fitting. It's a completely different dynamic. The dude's a full-fledged rock star now, and it just seems right for him to have a guitar strapped on, fronting the Foo Fighters.

Chip Kalback

Foo Fighters at the Pepsi Center last night. More Foo Fighters Denver photos.

There were times throughout the night where Grohl was the obvious focal point, especially when he would play and sing on an extended section in front of the stage and it felt like he was almost disconnected from the rest of the band. Sure, the other guys iwere playing their asses off, too, but it was hard not to look at the super-energetic frontman when he's screaming his fucking balls off -- which he said he's been doing for about twenty years during "Breakout."

Chip Kalback

Foo Fighters at the Pepsi Center last night. More Foo Fighters Denver photos.

While "Bridge Burning" and "Rope," both from the band's latest effort, Wasting Light, got the crowd warmed up early in the set, the Fighters cranked things up a notch with muscular takes on "The Pretender" and "My Hero." For the most part, the players kept the energy surging throughout the set, sometimes stretching out on songs and slowing them down and then ramping them back up, as they did on "Stacked Actor."

About midway through the show, Grohl asked the crowd who had seen the Foo Fighters before and who hadn't seem them before. Judging from the crowd reaction, Grohl said it was about half and half and said they'd played places where six people would have already seen them. "It's all good, because we used to suck and now we fucking tear ass," he said.

Chip Kalback

Foo Fighters at the Pepsi Center last night. More Foo Fighters Denver photos.

Indeed. These guys have come a ways from their 1995 self-titled debut and showed everyone at the Pepsi Center that they obviously know a few things about "tearing ass." Hell, they've mastered the art of the rock show. While there were some cool visuals on twelve screens above the stage and a solid light show, the band could have essentially done away with that and it still would have been one of the ultimate rock shows to come through in recent years. "Monkey Wrench," "This Is a Call" and "Walk" were all energetic as hell, but "These Days" was one of the night's many highlights.

"It's my favorite song I ever wrote in my whole fucking entire life," Grohl said of "These Days." "I wrote this song in a minute and a half. I was sitting upstairs in my fucking house, and I started playing this fucking riff and I started singing the fucking lyrics and I thought, 'Holy shit, I think I just wrote the song I've been trying to write for twenty fucking years.'"

Review continues on the next page with set list.