The Delta Riggs
Rise Against
NIB Stadium
Sunday, March 8, 2015
With this show being the final of the Foo Fighters, Sonic Highways Australian tour, fans young and old made their way into NIB Stadium last night to catch their first Perth performance in four years. And with a career spanning over 20 years and multiple Perth visits, fans were eager for their fill of Foo.
The Delta Riggs opened to a filling stadium in the heat of the day, the Melbourne four-piece played a welcome set for the summery afternoon vibe.
Chicago hard-core act, Rise Against, touring off the back of their 2014 release The Black Market, played a hit heavy set spanning all of their favourites from albums The Unraveling through to the Black Market. Lead singer, Tim McIlrath, addressed the fans with a gracious thank you for their loyal support before closing with their hit single, Savior.
Not doubt modern rock music’s biggest icon, Dave Grohl appeared on stage to a thunderous roar, strumming his Gibson 335 furiously to pump up the 30,000+ size crowd. The rest of the Foo Fighters then followed as they launched into Something from Nothing then straight into The Pretender. Dave paused mid-song to acknowledge a stage diver and coined the phrase ‘crowd surfie selfie’.
Big Me, Learn To Fly, Break Out and My Hero were crowd pleasers. Grohl took a moment to introduce the band members, drummer Taylor Hawkins interjected to profess his love for his best friend and musical idol, Grohl, who had flown half way around the world to get to the show this evening. Grohl told the story of how the original date of the show was moved because it conflicted with his daughters Daddy/Daughter Dance, having to fly home after the Eastern States shows then fly back to Perth, unfortunately contracting food poisoning at the dance. The crowd playing with him, chanting ‘chug, chug’ to chug his beer, Grohl reluctantly obliged, allowing Hawkins the chance to go on the mic for his own song, Cold Day In The Sun, leading Grohl to comment, ‘When I was looking for a drummer my ad stated I wanted a cross between Freddie Mercury and Stewart Copeland’.
Arlandria and Monkey Wrench brought back the high energy before Grohl made his way down the ‘ego ramp’ for an acoustic Skin And Bones, joined by keyboard player, Rami Jaffee, on accordion.
Grohl declared ‘I’d like to play a song for you’ as he strummed out Times Like These solo on his acoustic, the band rose from a platform mid-ramp and joined in to conclude the song. Now in the round the band became very casual and Grohl admitted “This is where we live out our garbage band fantasies” as they explored covers of The Faces Stay With Me, Queen’s Under Pressure and AC-DC’s Let There Be Rock (‘This one’s for Bon!’)
Returning to the big stage they punched through extended versions of All My Life, These Days and Best Of You. Thanking the crowd, Grohl concluded, ‘We don’t do the encore thing, so we’ll just say…’
Everlong.
And it said it all.
ANTHONY JACKSON
