"We have two hours to play 150 songs — two hours is a short set for us!" While Dave Grohl couldn't beat Shania Twain's opening night sellout numbers of 30,000 attendees, he could beat her (or at the very least equal her) in Springsteen-esque hard work and stage presence. While the other eight headliners at Ottawa's largest music festival started their sets at 9:30 p.m., Foo Fighters pledged to go above and beyond, hitting the stage a half hour earlier.
Nearing 30 years as a band, Grohl and his alt-rock world conquerors have become a well-oiled machine, recognizing precisely how to work a crowd and a setlist for maximum results. Opening with crescendo-bursting versions of "All My Life" and "The Pretender," Foo Fighters covered a ton of musical ground, delivering material from every one of their 11 studio albums (except for their collaborations LP, Sonic Highways). Segueing into snippets of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," and Metallica's "Enter Sandman" (marking the second cover of the third, after Weezer's rendition a week earlier), along with ample stage banter, the sextet kept things loose and entertaining throughout the evening.
Ripping into singalong classics like "Learn to Fly," "This Is a Call" and "Monkeywrench," new drummer Josh Freese (the Vandals, A Perfect Circle) showed off why he was such a high-demand session and touring musician prior to joining the Foos. But while he hammered the skins throughout heavier fare like "Walk" and "No Son of Mine," the Florida musician's tendency to play slightly ahead of the beat at times threatened to derail groovier tracks like "Under You" and "La Dee Da."
Expertly adding to the ebb and flow of the set, Grohl would play with the dynamics of more emotionally gripping songs like "My Hero" and "Times Like These," stripping down the intros to just strummed guitar and keyboards (courtesy of former Wallflowers' member Rami Jaffee). Bringing out his daughter Violet for duets on downbeat numbers "Shame Shame" and "Show Me How" inevitably chipped away at the evening's energy despite their touching implications.
Promising to keep playing "'til they kick us off the stage," the band eschewed the customary encore façade, rather powering through their last four numbers. Finally addressing former drummer Taylor Hawkins' passing, the band included a stirring rendition of There Is Nothing Left to Lose deep cut "Aurora," which Grohl called Hawkins' favourite song.
Pushing the set only minutes past the 11:00 p.m. curfew with the crowd-dominating "Everlong," Foo Fighters managed to serve Ottawa a fan-pleasing, focus-group set, while extracting every ounce of energy, drama, and emotion they could muster.
Nearing 30 years as a band, Grohl and his alt-rock world conquerors have become a well-oiled machine, recognizing precisely how to work a crowd and a setlist for maximum results. Opening with crescendo-bursting versions of "All My Life" and "The Pretender," Foo Fighters covered a ton of musical ground, delivering material from every one of their 11 studio albums (except for their collaborations LP, Sonic Highways). Segueing into snippets of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," and Metallica's "Enter Sandman" (marking the second cover of the third, after Weezer's rendition a week earlier), along with ample stage banter, the sextet kept things loose and entertaining throughout the evening.
Ripping into singalong classics like "Learn to Fly," "This Is a Call" and "Monkeywrench," new drummer Josh Freese (the Vandals, A Perfect Circle) showed off why he was such a high-demand session and touring musician prior to joining the Foos. But while he hammered the skins throughout heavier fare like "Walk" and "No Son of Mine," the Florida musician's tendency to play slightly ahead of the beat at times threatened to derail groovier tracks like "Under You" and "La Dee Da."
Expertly adding to the ebb and flow of the set, Grohl would play with the dynamics of more emotionally gripping songs like "My Hero" and "Times Like These," stripping down the intros to just strummed guitar and keyboards (courtesy of former Wallflowers' member Rami Jaffee). Bringing out his daughter Violet for duets on downbeat numbers "Shame Shame" and "Show Me How" inevitably chipped away at the evening's energy despite their touching implications.
Promising to keep playing "'til they kick us off the stage," the band eschewed the customary encore façade, rather powering through their last four numbers. Finally addressing former drummer Taylor Hawkins' passing, the band included a stirring rendition of There Is Nothing Left to Lose deep cut "Aurora," which Grohl called Hawkins' favourite song.
Pushing the set only minutes past the 11:00 p.m. curfew with the crowd-dominating "Everlong," Foo Fighters managed to serve Ottawa a fan-pleasing, focus-group set, while extracting every ounce of energy, drama, and emotion they could muster.
