MUSIC

Foo Fighters give Nashville 2½ hours of rock, Queen covers and a kid drummer

Dave Paulson
The Tennessean
The Foo Fighters perform at Bridgestone Arena Friday May 4, 2018.

Before Friday night, it had been awhile since Nashville had seen Dave Grohl on his feet.

When his band Foo Fighters last came to the city’s Bridgestone Arena in 2015, he had to play the whole show sitting down after breaking his leg at a concert a few months prior.

Three years later, not only was Grohl standing at the band’s Friday night concert at Bridgestone, he rarely did it in one place for long.

From the first song of their nearly three-hour set, the 49-year-old was careening around the stage. He was a long-haired, black-clad rock and roll drill Sargent, exhorting his audience to clap, wave their hands, and try to screech as loud as he did.

More in Tennessee:Foo Fighters make it up to Memphis with epic concert at FedExForum

Even when drummer Taylor Hawkins took an extended drum solo — and the rest of the band hopped off stage to take a breather — Grohl stayed up there, nodding his head, with a guitar neck still in his grasp.

As songs like "Learn to Fly," "The Pretender" and "Rope" were plowed through, Music City didn’t want to be outdone by the man (and band) they came to see. Whenever the Foos stopped a song in its tracks before the final chorus — which is honestly a move they could ease up on — the audience would roar to life, and wouldn’t stop for a good 30 seconds. More than once, Grohl had to cut in. 

“There’s more, mother——s,” he’d say with a smile. 

The Foo Fighters perform at Bridgestone Arena Friday May 4, 2018.

Some audience members even came prepared to be a part of the show. On the floor of the arena, a few fans waved poster board signs with messages like “I Want to sing Zeppelin with Foo Fighters.” Recently, the band has indulged a few of these requests, and video footage has inevitably made the media rounds. 

That practice may have come to an end last night, thanks to a prepubescent audience member Grohl christened “Lil’ Fonzie.”

He was perched on his dad’s shoulders, and after Grohl spotted him, he soon made his way to the stage, where he asked to play drums.

The crowd cheers for The Foo Fighters during their performance at Bridgestone Arena Friday May 4, 2018.

A proposed one-minute drum solo turned into several more minutes of impressive playing, and likely would have gone on for hours had several members not intervened. 

"Hey, Lil' Fonzie, can I have my concert back?" Grohl joked. Eventually, they lured him off the stage with the promise of a Coca-Cola.

Once "Fonzie" was gone, Grohl buried his face in his hands, laughed, and then addressed the audience.

"No more signs, okay? No more, 'We wanna jam with the Foos,' because you're never gonna get better than Lil Fonzie."

Beyond that, it seems like the band has plenty of jamming to do on their own. Friday's show was littered with breakdowns, extended vamps, solos and a number of colorful covers, including a mashup of John Lennon's "Imagine" and Van Halen's "Jump" (which was dreamt up by a remixer years ago).

Once again, Hawkins and Grohl swapped places so Hawkins could sing Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure," albeit this time with Luke Spiller of opening act The Struts. Grohl stripped down staples like "My Hero" and "Times Like These" into solo numbers, and their punky early hits ("This Is a Call," "Monkey Wrench") were given extra dashes of arena rock flair.

The Foo Fighters perform at Bridgestone Arena Friday May 4, 2018.

Even though the band went on promptly at 8:30, this crowd had been waiting a long time for this show. It was originally supposed to happen last October, but the band had to postpone the date due to a family emergency.

"I'm sorry we had to postpone the last show," Grohl said on Friday. "...(there's) one thing I love more than Foo Fighters, and that's my mama. And when she needs me to come home, I (expletive) come home."

For the encore, the band (and a trio of female vocalists who've joined them following their latest album, 2017's "Concrete and Gold") dished out three more songs: the new "Dirty Water" plus "This is a Call" and finally their signature, "Everlong."

"I don't know how many times we've played this city," Grohl said before that last number. "It's been a lot. But we've been a band a long time, and I think we're gonna be a band for a long time coming, so hopefully we'll come back some day. Because if you come back, we'll come back."