Playing a second straight night at the Long Beach Arena, brash rockers of the band the Foo Fighters made it their mission Sunday night to win over a few of the more devoted Weezer fans, who were there to see their beloved and polite quartet play just prior as co-headliners.“Our goal tonight is to convert some of the hard-core Weezer fans into drunken, sloppy Foo Fighters fans,” said lead singer and guitarist Dave Grohl who also mentioned that he’s never seen anyone pound a beer bong faster than Weezer’s frontman, Rivers Cuomo.
The foursome - Grohl, drummer Taylor Hawkins, bassist Nate Mendel and guitarist Chris Shiflett - ended the show and dedicated all of the set’s love interludes to their friends in Weezer, who have been touring with the Foo Fighters. The members of Weezer, with their unassuming collared shirts and black-rimmed glasses, are the kind of men you’d invite to an intimate dinner party with perhaps the demure Mendel and Shiflett. However, you’d have to stick Grohl at the kids’ table and ask Hawkins outside to work the valet.
After playing several opening songs including the hit “My Hero” and “Best of You” to a crowd of general admission attendees and the remaining with assigned seats along the arena’s upper levels, Grohl unleashed a robust and loud belch into the microphone.
“I’m a little hung over tonight but I’m feeling a little better and I came into work today, into the office feeling a little sleepy, a little dizzy,” he said.
Throngs of parched teenagers and young college kids put their bodies through the ringer by squishing them up against barricades lining the front of the stage, and with mosh pits forming and security guards grabbing crowd surfers every few minutes, the audience was almost as entertaining as the band.
The group went on to play the romantic ballad “Up In Arms” for those in the nosebleed sections complete with the swaying of floor-level arms that became, “The first and the last arm sway at a Foo Fighters concert,” said Grohl, followed by a short rock ditty for the people in the pit. They also played “Learn to Fly” off the 1999 album “There is Nothing Left to Lose” and the raucous “Stacked Actors.”
Grohl also made light that the Long Beach Arena has been a venue of some “legendary rock concerts,” including the time when Blue Oyster Cult opened for Led Zeppelin, and then went into “DOA” off the new record “In Your Honor.”
Hawkins, behind the drum kit for the entire show, walked out to the front, looking like he just returned from the gym, his thin frame glistening of sweat, wearing a tank top, cotton shorts, white Adidas shoes and the comically colored black socks while smoking a cigarette. Grohl took Hawkins’ place while Hawkins strapped on a red guitar, took a few more drags the same way he did before kicking off the show and sang “Cold Day in the Sun.” The two switched back into their respective spots as Grohl reflected on his years as a drummer (with Nirvana).
“That’s a workout, you got to be in shape. It’s easy being a lead singer,” he said. “I’m glad I gave up that crap.”
The show’s most poignant moment came in a moving rendition of “Everlong” off the 1997 “The Colour & The Shape,” which Grohl sang with only his guitar, showcasing the song’s haunting and striking melody and fleetingly starry-eyed yet tender lyrics that he dedicated to all of the “mellow, old-school fans.” Grohl’s performance culminated when the rest of the band walked back out on stage and finished up the song playing the last four lines of the song (I wonder if everything could ever feel this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again/The only thing I’ll ever ask of you/ You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when) in wild, earsplitting Foo Fighters fashion.
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