The Foo Fighters, O2 Arena, London - 18 November 2007

NB: I am in the process of uploading some of the video clips I took so please check back. These include a guitar stand-off, Dave's first monologue, a snippet of the crowd singing "My Hero" and Taylor's drum solo. Oh how I spoil you so.

The Foo Fighters have been around for awhile, especially on the festival circuit, but I never really gave them a second glance until recently. Sure, I'd heard their radio-friendly, formulaic songs and seen their often hilarious cross-dressing videos on the likes of MTV (straight men in drag always gets a good chuckle out of me). But that was my impression of them - a rock band with mediocre songs, what the heck is the drummer from Nirvana doing as a frontman?!

Then of course, I saw them at Live Earth, and oh. my. God. They were so fucking good that their album sales went up by 1,000% (yes, ONE THOUSAND per cent ) in the UK. So what if their songs are mediocre? It is their delivery of those songs on a live platform that makes them a fantastic live act. Plus, it is well established that Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins (by far the cutest little thing behind a set of drums, ever) are two of the nicest guys in rock, which can only help. In fact, I read a review of their latest album and because Dave Grohl has always been such a nice guy to the reviewer, he gave the album one more star. True story.

One of the opening acts was Serj Tankian, former lead singer of System of a Down. It must have been a Spinal Tap type joke right? He sounded like a cross between a polka-group on acid and a Turkish heavy metal band. And don't get me started on the socio-political messages of his songs. Still, he seemed like a nice guy though, I'm just not sure I got his music. He apparently lives in New Zealand now.

Like true professionals, the Foos emerged onstage at 8.30p.m, on the dot - no big entrance, no drama, they just walked on. I think everyone was mildly surprised by the rather subdued entrance but the entire arena soon got over it and the place erupted. And for 2 1/2 hours, the crowd was duly entertained and of course, the Foos stuck to a winning formula - 4 fast-rocking songs to begin with, the first monologue of the night (does Dave ever not say the F word?), Dave running up and down the runway with his guitar headbanging that long scruffy hair of his, a great drum solo by Taylor "The Cutie" Hawkins, the acoustic set on the centre stage (which was initially illuminated in a sea of red)...


...Dave introducing the rest of the band (Taylor getting the loudest screams and wolf whistles, as expected), Taylor thanking Dave or else they (the band) would all be serving cheeseburgers or out of a job (at which point I was actually dying to shout "I hear Alanis Morrissette is looking for a drummer" but wisely decided against it*), a rapturous performance of "My Hero", back to the main stage for a few more rockin' songs, the band leaves, Dave & Taylor teasing the crowd backstage with a night-vision camera before the encore (btw, Dave was blatantly smoking backstage and flouting the smoking ban but no one even gasped because he is such a nice guy so who cares if he was breaking the law?!), back for the encore, Dave introducing one of their collaborators on the new record (some guitarist called Katy something or other, very talented), on with the show, duet with Serj the mad Armenian with Kiwi PR, and ending with "Best of Me" (of course) ("Everlong" was thrown in there somewhere too). I could have written how the show would go down on a piece of paper the night before and handed it to you and after the show, I'd ask you to open it up and you'd stare at me in amazement at my Nostradamus-like abilities. BUT before you think it, I am not dissing the Foos, far from it in fact, because they thoroughly delivered by giving the sold out arena an impeccable and energetic performance. If it was any other band I'd scoff at the obviousness of it all but there's just something so damn likeable about the Foos that you'd just let it slide. Dave is a riot, very witty and sharp, damn I'd gladly pay cash to hang out with him for half an hour. Plus, my respect for him went through the roof when he recently called Paris Hilton a total, raging, disgusting, rich, lazy party slut. I mean, you must really be a disgrace to society when the nicest guy in rock has nothing, erm, nice, to say about you.

*Taylor was the travelling drummer for Alanis during the Jagged Little PIll days and there were rumours of a relationship of the non-professional variety between the two, if you know what I mean ;) - God why do I know so many useless trivia??!