Why the Foo Fighters Still Rock... and LA Audiences Still Suck

The Foo Fighters have a knack for giving back to their fans. Last night (October 13, 2011) was no exception. It pains me to see such a lack of response to such a generous and high energy performance. Dave Grohl has become a showman over the last 16 years. His attempts to pull every ounce of energy out of his audience in a sort of Rock N Roll catharsis, are usually successful, but with the LA crowd, it seems useless to even try. The general admission floor looked like it was a Ray Lamontagne show at the Greek. Stoic. The occasional arm in the air. No bouncing. No dancing. One meager 6' pit containing the eight douchy meat-heads of the bunch. And the only person I saw crowd surf all night was Matthew Shultz of Cage the Elephant. Is this all an indication of a flat show? The answer is no. Los Angeles audiences are so concerned and self-aware of what they are doing at any given moment, or by whom they might be seen, that they forgo the opportunity to "checkout" for four hours and actually enjoy themselves. Half of the audience appeared to be there, not for the Foos, but because it's a scene. Countless people I witnessed didn't know virtually any of the songs (a friend of mine said the folks in front of them asked them, "what song is this?" several times during the show). The floor and good seats were littered with record execs, corporate sponsor lackeys, and scenesters that could give a fuck about what they were fortunate enough to witness. If I had my way, there would be a small Rock N Roll aptitude test prior to releasing floor tickets to anyone. If you were to score poorly, 'eff' off, it's rafter seats for you... if you're lucky. Now on to the important stuff.

Here is my recap of the night, as best as I remember, in setlist form:

Bridge Burning - Strong opening song to the record and no different live. *Note* Guy next to me asked what I thought they'd open with. I called it.
Rope - Easy to understand how they segue in to this one
The Pretender - kept it on a roll here, still no breaks in the action by this point
My Hero - enough said.
Learn to Fly - Pretty typical choice off of There is Nothing Left to Lose
White Limo - Great. Wanted to see Lemmy. Crowd sucked.
Arlandria - One of the best off of Wasting Light. Great live.
Breakout - Dave stated that this was for the "old fans". Crowd sucked. 50% knew words for singalong
Cold Day in the Sun - Taylor sings this one... while drumming (no more switching out w/Grohl)
Stacked Actors - Saw this one coming a mile away. Loved it. Crowd sucked.
Walk - You knew this was in the setlist.
Monkey Wrench - Amazing long, long version of this song.
Let It Die - Good energy on this one.
These Days - Pat told Grohl he should share about this. Grohl told crowd it was his favorite song he's ever written.
Skin and Bones - Awesome.
This is a Call - One of the highlights of the night. Said it was first song they played at Spaceland in Silverlake.
In the Flesh? [cover - Pink Floyd] - Amazing. Killer drums. Mini laser show.
All My Life - The only song that amped up the audience all night. Surprise, surprise.

They left the stage here. After a couple of minutes Grohl's face appears on the jumbo-tron via a "night vision" camera backstage. He begins to mime "one more". Then two. Pan to Taylor who says 3. Back to Grohl who says no then finally caves. 3 it is. Then back to Taylor who mimes 4. Grohl again refuses only to cave. This went back and forth for a while. It was a great little game to play with the audience for the encore. They settled on 6. Then played 7. Here they are:

Long Road to Ruin - acoustic with only Grohl in the middle of the crowd.
Best of You - acoustic again.
Times Like These - acoustic leading to the entire band finishing the 2nd half of this one.

Miss The Misery [with Fee Waybill] - highlight of the night. Amazing song. Amazing live.

Dear Rosemary - Another highlight. They've really figured this one out... it segued in to this>>>
Breakdown [cover - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers] - From Rosemary they moved in to the guitar riff from this tune and ended up playing the whole cover. Highlight of the night for sure. Most of the crowd had no idea who wrote it or what the song was.
Everlong - Big finish with one of their biggest hits.

Here are some other points to make about the show:

Grohl ate shit twice. Once he was running past Chris Shiflett and slipped on, what presumably was his sweat on the floor. Chris didn't see. Pat died laughing and told Chris what happened while continuing to play. The second time, Dave was running back up the catwalk section of stage to the stairs towards the main. He caught the last step and slammed doing a full on tuck and roll with guitar. He didn't break the guitar or his neck. I'm not sure how.

Fee Waybill, formerly of The Tubes, was a great guest. The song sounded really good and his harmonies were pretty spot on. What did you expect, the guy has worked with Toto for the love of Pete.

In the Flesh? was really great. I saw the performance, in which they played this with Waters on TV. Lighting guys threw in a little laser homage during the song.

Seeing Pat Smear on stage was a highlight for me. He wasn't with the band last time I saw them.

All in all the Foos set was about 2:45. I couldn't have asked for more from the band. It was totally worth the ticket price for such a generous performance. 16 years and still rocking.