Everybody was fun Foo Fighting as rock royalty blast into Brisbane

Story pitch: person who has been living in a bunker for 29 years finally emerges and takes in their 2023 surroundings. Their first question? “What happened to the drummer from Nirvana? He was good.”

If only this was a real story, but just imagine their awe if they attended Tuesday night’s explosive hit-parade Foo Fighters concert at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane as Dave Grohl – now a world-renowned singer, guitarist and songwriter – led the band at their screamy, incendiary best.

Fans descended on Suncorp Stadium for the Foo Fighters’ explosive Brisbane show.Credit: Suncorp Stadium

After launching into 2002’s All My Life to open the show, with the intensity of a high-category Cyclone Jasper, Grohl promised the band would pack in as many big hits as possible from their storied career.

Second track No Son of Mine included snippets of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap as the ever-likeable frontman mock-earnestly asked the crowd, “Do you like rock’n’roll music?” before declaring “I do!”

The final Australian show of their current tour also included a tribute to late longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died in March 2022, dedicating the song Aurora (Hawkins’ favourite and one of the first he, Grohl and bassist Nate Mendel collaborated on for 1999’s third LP There Is Nothing Left to Lose) to his memory.

Grohl also recounted a now Foos-lore tale of himself and Hawkins getting arrested for drunk-riding scooters on the Gold Coast at the 2000 Big Day Out and Grohl spent the night in a cell with “a guy in a Primus T-shirt”. First they inspire a new generation of rock bands, now an epidemic of south-east Queensland e-scooter DUIs and crashes?!

Dave Grohl and the band roared through their impeccable back catalogue.Credit: Alex Condon

New drummer Josh Freese, who has played with numerous big-name acts including the Offspring and Devo (cue: brief grunge-rock version of Whip It), left nothing in the tank, especially on heavy bangers The Pretender and The Sky Is a Neighbourhood.

Like the band, the crowd maintained roaring, phone torch-waving energy throughout to the likes of Monkey Wrench and Best of You as the band closed the set – the second-last track being a cover of Acca Dacca’s 1976 belter Big Balls sung by their drum technician Fiona (“because she has bigger balls than the rest of us”).

The obligatory encore saw epic new psychedelic track The Teacher and 1997 singalong classic Everlong end the show. Grohl even donned a Jimmy Page-style doubleneck guitar for the former song.

Yet perhaps Grohl’s most rock-star moment came when he casually lit up a cigarette at the strictly no-smoking Suncorp. Political/music Brisbane trivia: in 2006, then-premier Peter Beattie paid Robbie Williams’ fine for also smoking mid-show at the same venue – will incoming premier Steven Miles do the same?

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