The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast

Episode 018 - Foo Fighters Concert Review

• ALEX GADD • Season 1 • Episode 18

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This week, I'm reviewing the Foo Fighters concert at Citi Field on July 17th, an event that tested the resilience of fans and performers alike. It started out strong, with electrifying supporting performances by The Pretenders and Mammoth WVH, before the Foos came out of the gates strong. 

But the night wasn't without its hiccups—an abrupt end due to lightning threats left fans disappointed and seeking answers. I dive into the ethical quandaries that arise when concerts are cut short and propose practical solutions for fan compensation. Get ready for a thought-provoking discussion on how promoters can better handle these situations. Plus, check out our weekly Spotify playlist featuring all the songs from the setlist. Life is short, so join us this week for another concert review on The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast, produced by World Highway Media.

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Alex Gadd:

Welcome to the Rock and Roll Show podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another concert review for you. I went to see the Foo Fighters at Citi Field in Queens, New York, last week and I have many thoughts I want to discuss with you. So stick around for my Foo Fighters fan. I was onto them right off the bat in 1995 when they caught on with their first single, This Is A Call, and their breakthrough Mentos-inspired video for Big Me. But I didn't see them for various reasons until 2015 when Dave Grohl was singing and playing guitar on the throne after he broke his leg falling off a stage in Sweden. That show was also at Citi Field and it was really good, but with him stuck in his seat it was a little off from what I expected. The other gigs I've seen them play were great. They delivered the energy I wanted from them and then some. So my excitement level was pretty high.

Alex Gadd:

Heading into last Wednesday's show, I went with my friend Rod. He was my guest back in Episode eight, which I encourage you to check out, because he had never seen the Foos, was a big fan and also he really wanted to see Wolfgang Van Halen and his band Mammoth WVH and they were opening the show along with the Pretenders, who were also on the bill. We got to the stadium at just before 6 pm and hustled in because we heard Mammoth was already playing when we parked the car. We got in just in time to see Wolfie play his last song, which was a great performance of Don't Back Down. Apparently, they went on at 5.30 and played only six songs, so that was it for us catching Mammoth, though we both agreed that they won't be playing in an opening slot for much longer. As they were and are really good, they deserve to play their own shows.

Alex Gadd:

The Pretenders went on at 6.30 and played for almost an hour, getting 14 songs in. They sounded great and Chrissy Hine really is so timeless. She sounded great. Highlights of their set included my City Is Gone, an excellent tattooed Love Boys and a really high-energy version of Middle of the Room. They were off the stage by 7.25 or so and then on to the foos. Now it's important for me to mention the weather. It was really really humid and made the temperature of 85 or so degrees feel much warmer. Plus, there was rain in the forecast for later in the evening, but the pretenders played in a bright hazy sunshine and they went over. Great Foo Fighters came on right after 8 pm and went all out right from the start with a banging version of All my Life and off we went.

Speaker 2:

Soft and never comes. These are nothing, none to satisfy. Getting close, closer to the price Of being on the road oh, not long, but you know what? The day. We are knickers around, stealing away Least. We're at the feeling, or the feeling most we will come alive. We're on.

Alex Gadd:

A few newer songs, including Rescued, the first single from the latest album, and then a few more rockers, before they slowed it down with my favorite food song Times Like these, as they've been doing pretty consistently over the last 10 years or so. Dave starts off the song almost acapella, with only Rami Jaffe's keyboards laying down some ethereal chords behind him, and he goes through both verses and two choruses before the band explodes into the rest of the song and the outro. You can see them do this when they played the song on SNL, which you can find on YouTube search Times Like these SNL. And here's how that sounded Wednesday night.

Speaker 2:

It's times like these you learn to love again. It's times like these, time and time again, wow, wow.

Alex Gadd:

They did a few more songs which were deep cuts from earlier albums. Then did the band intros, where each band member played a cover song that they liked as they were introduced. Chris Shifflett, the lead guitarist and great podcast host in his own right you gotta check out Shred with Shifty on YouTube or volumecom sometime. It's really good stuff Started out by playing Van Halen's Eruption and segued that into ACDC's Thunderstruck, which got Dave to call him out for his bravery for playing an Eddie Van Halen lick while Wolfie was backstage. Should have also called him out for the poor foreshadowing, but we'll get back to that. The intros ended with Dave presenting the new drummer to us, Josh freeze, which was really well handled. Dave thanked Josh for making this all possible, without even mentioning Taylor Hawkins during the intros. So of course, Taylor was not forgotten. They honored him separately at the end of the set.

Alex Gadd:

Every night, After band intros, they played my Hero and then the Sky is a Neighborhood, which was the lead single from 2017's Concrete and Gold album. It was another foreshadowing interesting choice, because by this time, the skies had gotten darker and we started seeing the flashes of lightning in the sky off to the west. We didn't see actual lightning, mind you, because we were down in the lower bowl of the stadium and the west was basically behind us, but the skies were getting busy. The stadium and the West was basically behind us, but the skies were getting busy. As the band started the next song, Learn to Fly, Dave suddenly broke it down and let us know that a storm was coming in quick, and they would try to play as many songs as they could before the storm arrived, but they were going to need to take a break at some point for our safety as well as, of course, theirs and the staff at the stadium.

Speaker 2:

I gotta tell you something. Hold on See. This is the good thing about being a live body roll fan we can break shit down when we don't want to. I just got word from the side of the stage there's a storm coming. Hold on. Hold on, there's some lightning and shit like that Hold on, hold on, there's some lightning. And shit like that Hold on, I'm not fucking, I'm up here right now.

Alex Gadd:

I'm telling you we're going to play as much as we can until someone says it's not safe for you.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Alex Gadd:

The band made it through, Learn to Fly and tried to start Everlong the song they always play last, but they were forced to leave the stage after only 26 seconds of that. Take a look.

Speaker 2:

Let's do this shit before it gets weird. Let's do this shit right now. Here we go.

Alex Gadd:

After that they told us they would come back if they could, but go get safe. And with that we got up from our seats and moved to the concourses, which were fully covered and suddenly jam-packed. A lot of people just headed for the exits right then, but an equal number stayed, hoping the rain would pass. Rod and I among those people. Within three or four minutes it started really raining hard. Many of the fans that had seats on the field got stuck trying to get undercover in the outfield and stood in the pouring rain for at least 15 minutes, waiting in vain, before finally being turned around by security and having to go the other way, towards the first base stands, where they then walked all the way up from the field to the concourse. But those poor people must have been in the rain for at least 20 minutes. I really felt for them. Now we waited for an hour before checking the weather radar on our phones and seeing again that the storm seemed to have stalled directly over us With every indication it would go on like this for many more hours. So Rod and I left. Running from the exit of the stadium to our car took only three or four minutes tops, but we were totally soaked by the time we got into the car. Getting home was easy, as the first rush of people had long since left and there were a ton of people hoping to wait it out in the stadium still, so we were able to get on the highway right away. Lucky for us, they called the show shortly thereafter, so we at least avoided a traffic jam while sitting in an air-conditioned car. But it left me disappointed and more than a little conflicted, and that's what I'd like to discuss with you all.

Alex Gadd:

What was really the best outcome for that night? First, let me say that the band 100% did the right thing in the moment. The show was listed as Rain or Shine, but it was the only thing they could do given the threat of significant lightning. No lightning ever struck the stadium, despite all the rigging set up around the infield, not at least in the hour or so that I was still there. But no one's life was worth continuing the show in those conditions for. But herein lies my problem. The band got paid their full fee despite putting on only half their show. The venue got paid its full fee and should have. They had people there all day. The promoter kept all its profits, only the fans got short change, and that's what continues to bug me. Shouldn't the fans be the first concern of both the band and the promoter? I think so, and Dave Grohl seems like a fan-friendly kind of band leader.

Alex Gadd:

While the cost of attending this concert was not at the Taylor Swift or U2 levels, it wasn't cheap. Two tickets and parking for me was $440, and I thought of all the people for whom that was a lot of money. It was a lot of money for me. I also thought of all the service industry and other hourly wage workers who not only laid out that amount of money more or less, but also had to give up a night's earnings to see the show. Paying that kind of dough to see more of the opening act than we did of the headliner just felt wrong. So it got me thinking about what else could have been done earlier to avoid getting us all in that no-win scenario once the storm hit.

Alex Gadd:

Here are my initial thoughts. One they could have moved up the pretenders into Mammoth's 530 slot and started the foos at 630 or 645. I can report that the stadium was not even a quarter full at the conclusion of Wolfie's set, so it wouldn't have inconvenienced that many people and it would have allowed the Foos to play their complete show. Modern weather tracking is at least good enough that they could have anticipated that the storm might hit during the headliner's set and adjusted so that the majority of the fans got to see the full set of the band they were paying to see Two. They could have moved the whole concert to the next night where there was no rain in the forecast, while normally this isn't even an option when a band plays a town, because then they immediately move on to their next gig. The Foos were playing the first of two nights at Citi Field, second night being Friday, and could have rescheduled the first show to Thursday. This would have put out some of the Wednesday ticket buyers if they couldn't adjust their schedules, but with the secondary ticket market being as efficient as it is these days, it wouldn't have been hard to sell those tickets. And I know headlining bands don't love playing back-to-back nights, especially the way Dave sings and screams and gives his all physically and vocally. But that would have been better than seeing 11 songs plus the band intros Number three.

Alex Gadd:

More realistically, the band could have offered something as a credit to the fans of that show at their online tour store or something as a means of acknowledging the way the fans were shortchanged. It wouldn't have replaced the 75 minutes of live music we missed, but most fans wouldn't have even cashed in that offer. It would have just been a sympathetic gesture of goodwill. My fourth thought, most realistically in my opinion, is that the promoter, live Nation, could have offered all the ticket holders a discount code for a future concert, which, again, most fans wouldn't use anyway, but it would show a level of acknowledgement that the fans had been shortchanged.

Alex Gadd:

For me, this is really all about the larger issue, and it's one that I don't know the answer to how much of the show would have had to have been canceled to trigger a refund. If the Foos never even got to go on because of the storm, would we have gotten a refund or rescheduled the show? How about if only Mammoth WVH played their set and then both the Pretenders and the Foos weren't able to play because of the storm? Again, I don't know, but it makes me wonder. And now I don't trust buying tickets to outdoor shows ahead of time, which is weird because I've seen more than 30 other outdoor shows in my life and this has never happened before.

Alex Gadd:

Now I've heard of shows being delayed by heavy rain. Springsteen played a show in 2012, on the night before his 63rd birthday, that didn't start until after 11 pm 8 o'clock showtime because of heavy rain and went till almost 2 in the morning, complete with the crowd and the crew and the band singing Bruce an unplanned happy birthday at midnight before the band broke into Wilson Pickett's in the midnight hour. It was a great thing, but that show wasn't called. So I recognize that this is not a regular occurrence, which should make it easier for the promoter to have a policy in place to do the right thing by the fans, since it wouldn't impact the promoter with any regularity. I would like to see Live Nation held to a higher standard, with some kind of basic compensation policy in place for shows that aren't delivered in their entirety. It just doesn't seem right that the only ones getting shortchanged in these relatively rare instances are the fans. Without us, there's no money to be made at all. As it stands now, if I want to see an outdoor show in the future, I'll wait till the day before, check the weather and then buy tickets, which is too bad because if enough of us started doing that, realizing that this may start happening more. In a world in which extreme weather is getting more and more common, shows won't sell as well ahead of time and might start being cut back. So those are my larger thoughts.

Alex Gadd:

Getting back to the show itself, here are my takeaways. Number one the Foo Fighters are a great live band and Dave is the consummate frontman. They sounded great and played great and it was sure fun while it lasted. Two Josh Freeze is more than a capable replacement for Taylor Hawkins. Without in any way sliding Taylor's memory, josh was dynamite on every song. Number three, and this is a general observation, I'd really like to see these bands start playing arenas again instead of stadiums.

Alex Gadd:

I get that they can make more money playing a stadium, but it was hot and humid and gross. Before it was raining cats and dogs. Dave was drenched from the end of the first song on in the swampy summer heat and most of all, I don't like watching a concert on a screen all night because even in my pretty decent seats we were too far away to make out anything more than the basic forms on the stage itself. Number four I love that they included some of the deeper tracks, especially Breakout and Generator, from 1999's. There Is Nothing Left to Lose album, one of my favorite albums.

Alex Gadd:

Number five that said, they should switch up the set list a bit more. From Night to Night, they play the same set list every night, only switching one song in and out. Even the Stones play a wider variety of songs on their tour than the Foos are. Number six I can't wait to see them again and get a full show in. So that's it.

Alex Gadd:

What do you think? I saw most of the comments online were that the promoters in the band did the right thing in pausing the show when they did, and again, I totally agree I'm talking about structurally. What do you think? Do we as fans deserve to be factored into the outcomes of shows we pay our good money to see, or should we just be happy with what we get? I want to know what you think, so please let me know in the comments or DM me any way you want. I'll get back to you.

Alex Gadd:

Anyway, that's it for this week's episode. Join us again next Tuesday when I'll be speaking with my friend, Tom Williams, about his concert experiences and, if you like what you heard today, I'd appreciate it if you would subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about every new episode and please tell your friends Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode. This week it will be the 11 songs from the setlist that I heard in order, plus the Mammoth and Pretender setlist. Look for the Rock and Roll Show podcast playlist on Spotify every week from the set list that I heard in order, plus the Mammoth and Pretender set list Look for the Rock-N- Roll Show podcast playlist on Spotify every week. The Rock-N- Roll Show podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.