Live Review: Foo Fighters Headline a Stacked Rock & Roll Bill at Fenway Park
I know I say it on an annual basis, but at least once a year there’s a stupendously stacked tour that rolls around and kicks major musical ass wherever it goes. Whoever attends manages to have a memorable experience with each band bringing their A-game. This was the case this past Sunday night at Fenway Park in Boston where Seattle rock & roll heroes Foo Fighters stopped by as part of their “Everything or Nothing at All Tour”. Rounding out the bill were the Swedish garage rock phenoms The Hives and Aussie punks Amyl and the Sniffers. Together, these three acts put on quite a party within the historic stadium.
Understandably so, I arrived a bit later than I would have liked due to the arduous endeavor that finding a parking spot can be in Boston. After I got that settled, I was able to catch the latter half of Amyl and the Sniffers’ set, which was finished off by the energetic and rambunctious “Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)”. I’ve been wanting to catch this band from Melbourne for a long time and when I finally did, they met my expectations in grand fashion. I really dug the riffs coming from Declan Martens’ guitar along with Amy Taylor’s exuberant stage presence. Their performance established an emphatic tone for the rest of the evening, and it was only bound to increase.
Wearing suits adorned with white lightning bolts and musical notes, The Hives took Fenway by storm. As one would expect, they were very engaged with the growing audience, even with frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist walking through the crowd on numerous occasions. Almqvist and his bandmates were very glad to be performing at Fenway Park for the first time with the highlights of their performance being “Bogus Operandi”, “Walk Idiot Walk” and “Tick Tick Boom”, which finished off the band’s set with Almqvist venturing through the attendees one last time and even drinking someone else’s beer. At this point when the sun was coming down, it was a bit blinding, but I did feel fortunate to be in the grandstand area where it wasn’t beating down on me.
After a half hour or so, Fenway was filled with Foo Fighters fans and Dave Grohl and the crew went on stage to a roaring applause. “All My Life” started things off with the audience singing every word and they kept on going with feverish clapping during “No Son of Mine”, which snuck in snippets of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. After maintaining the flowing energy with “Rescued”, “The Pretender” and “Walk”, Grohl reminisced about the time he played Fenway Park while sitting on a throne with a broken leg before going into “Times Like These”. Overall, Foo Fighters’ performance reminded me a lot of when they played Boston Calling last year, but with the crowd being more engaged this time around. I also have to say that it felt like a love letter to rock & roll with instances of Van Halen’s “Eruption”, The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and The Beatles’ “Blackbird” finding their way into the set along with other classic tunes.
This show was a blast, and it was an awesome way to close out another great weekend this summer. If you get the opportunity to catch Foo Fighters and whoever is opening for them in the future, then I highly suggest that you take advantage of it.
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