The greatest live band of all time, according to Dave Grohl: “They’re the best”
They may not be your cup of tea, presumably chamomile, their brand of hard rock may offend your sensibilities, likely hip, or their stadium-sized sound may not quite float your boat, a dinghy in Windermere listening to LCD Soundsystem on ‘a retreat’, but there is little to discredit the Foo Fighters when they take to the stage.
Even I, a chamomile-drinking Fall fan, have beheld the mastery of their prowess in an arena. Much of that is down to the powerhouse precision, juggernaut energy, and unbridled enthusiasm of the disk-bearded Dave Grohl. An unstoppable force when the spotlight hits, Grohl has long been considered one of the best in the business when given the stage to strut his stuff.
From his time in Nirvana to rubbing shoulders with John Paul Jones in Them Crooked Vultures and even collaborating with the likes of Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, and Trent Reznor in the Sound City Players, grisly Grohl knows a thing or two about confronting great musicianship in the flesh. This makes his take on live acts all the more noteworthy.
In fact, when he was asked what advice he’d give to up-and-coming bands, his answer was not only simple but rooted in his genuine belief that foundational moments are crafted under the limelight, “Go play live. Just play live.” If it was true of The Beatles in Hamburg, AC/DC in Aussie pubs, and even the Velvet Underground in the basements of Brooklyn, then it can be true of the ironically named bands of the future.
At a time when the music industry is as complex as the inner workings of your nearest stereo, trying to manipulate the system is wasted energy that could be spent in blood, sweat, and tears on the stage. As Grohl continued, “I don’t understand the industry. I don’t understand where music is headed. I don’t really understand technology. I just know when you walk into a club and you see a band that blows you away, you are going to follow that band.”
That’s part of the reason why I know a plethora of pulled-pork fanatic fathers who only get the chance to attend one show a year, and 90% of them will be making it to the Foo Fighters’ latest tour.
In short, Grohl’s three main points might not be poignant, but they were certainly pointed in the right way: You’ve got to be good, you’ve got to be badass, you’ve got to play live. Ideally, you do all three at the same time. And according to Grohl, “nothing else matters”.
One act that seemed to embody this ethos was Josh Homme’s first outing with Kyuss, the quasi-punk desert rock band that launched his career and began Grohl’s love affair with Homme’s work. The group’s elusive nature wasn’t reserved for the stage.
Kyuss literally had to change their recorded sound to mimic the mountains of the Palm Desert, where the surroundings had influenced their deep, echoing timbre. Kyuss were part band, part experience. The very name of their pioneering genre, ‘generator rock’, derived from the fact that they would play parties out in the Palm Desert of California, where the only source of electricity was petrol-powered generators. It’s the kind of mystical backstory that can endear a band to their audience. Thankfully, Kyuss were also able to absolutely destroy a party with their performance.
At these raucous events, small hardy groups would gather and, as guitarist Josh Homme remarks, “That was the shaping factor for the band. There’s no clubs here, so you can only play for free. If people don’t like you, they’ll tell you. You can’t suck.” Homme learnt this early and continued the tradition onwards to his later band, Queens of the Stone Age, a polished, premier version of his graduation alongside cacti and strange characters in the desert.
“When they hit the stage,” Grohl opined of Queens in an interview a few years back, “they’re the best rock band in the world, like nobody even gets close.” Considering the plethora of impressive acts Grohl has worked with, and the pedestal upon which he places performing, this is perhaps the greatest accolade he could bestow on another group. And it was long before they were announced as partners on a joint tour.
“There’s amazing live bands who write powerful songs like Rage Against the Machine,” he continued. “There’s amazing live bands that can make an audience go like this [makes mildly spasmodic hand gestures] like The Prodigy, but for musicality and as a musician, you sit and watch Queens of the Stone Age and you’re like, ‘That’s not fair, what the fuck?’ like everybody in the band is a fucking badass and they know it.”
As anyone fortunate to have seen the desert rock champions play live can attest, he’s not wrong. He may well have collaborated with them on countless occasions, but this hasn’t coloured his judgment. They’re a band who could prise open an oyster from a few hundred miles as they rattle the rafters like a hurricane, and they’re just as atmospheric, too.
“Nobody even gets close,” Grohl quipped on another occasion. And he’s far from alone – they’ve drawn plaudits in a similar fashion from the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, Courtney Love, and even Elton John. They’re not just respected, they’re feared by these folks too, as their friend in the Foo Fighters explained, when they walk backstage at a festival, any act set to follow quivers like a falt-pack wardrobe on the San Andreas faultline, “Without question, the baddest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” I wonder if Foos will be going first then?
