via//chicago

np: "everlong" - foo fighters

So thanks to the birthday present from my wonderful girlfriend, I hit up Allstate Arena on Monday night to check out the Foo Fighters / Weezer tour. It was a pretty fun night of reliving the mid-90s alt-rock years with two bands that still know how to put on one hell of an arena rock experience.
Kaiser Chiefs opened up the show and did a pretty decent job considering 85-90% of the crowd either didn't know them or didn't give a rat's ass about them. But after a little goading by the lead singer, the crowd was actually into it by the time they hit a peak on "Oh My God". I think I wouldn't mind seeing them again at a cheap club show. Better than expected.
Then we waited through your average arena-rock show setbreak for the mighty Weez. They kicked off with "My Name Is Jonas" before launching into a rather long string of songs off the last couple albums. Yawn. Ok, so it wasn't THAT bad - but I'd love a set of all Blue Album/Pinkerton material. They did break out "El Scorcho" though, so I was happy as was I with the cover of the Foo's "Big Me" - which was pretty good and better than 80% of the tracks Rivers has written recently. I hope he was paying attention. The last half of the set was more evenly balanced with older songs - "Surf Wax America", "Buddy Holly", "Say It Ain't So" (still love hearing a huge crowd singing along with that one). Then the drummer was brought up front to sing "Photograph" which morphed into the first half of Blur's "Song 2". For the first part of the encore, Rivers disappeared for a bit and popped up at the rear of the floor area for a solo acoustic "Island in the Sun" - it was decent enough and all the kiddies on the floor ran back to see him so we were able to move a lot closer to the stage. For the rest of the encore they did the "pull a random kid from the audience" to play the acoustic guitar part on "The Sweater Song" and followed it up with "Hash Pipe", which ended with tons of 'W' stamped confetti shooting into the crowd. Cool rock star show ending, but I'd rather have heard them end with "The Good Life".
Another set-break and the Foos were out. They had a pretty cool stage setup with tons and tons of amps/speakers piled haphazardly behind them and all sorts of funky-shaped screens. It started off with this circular screen obscuring the stage that rose up to reveal the band as they tore into "In Your Honor". Most of the set was taken from the last three albums and definitely focused on the band's rockier side. Dave was screaming his head off the whole time. I'll admit that the dude is one hell of a showman and loves to make sure the kids get their forty bucks worth. Particular highlights for me were an awesome version of "Stacked Actors" which saw Dave pull the same pop up on the other side of the floor trick that Rivers used, and a mostly solo "Everlong" that the rest of the band joined in on later. Dave told a cool story about being in Chicago when he was a kid and seeing his first punk show at the Cubby Bear, Naked Raygun and said that show was what motivated him to play punk rock. I'll admit that we were lame and left before the encore since the main-set ending "Everlong" was what we all wanted to hear anyway, plus we were hungry as hell and wanted to beat the post-show rush.
Overall, fun night at the rock show. Lots of loud music, lasers, smoke, and decent tunes. But I remember why I don't hit up those type of arena shows very often.
And for those interested in such things, here's the setlists for the main two bands:

My Name is Jonas
The Other Way
Don't Let Go
Dope Nose
This is Such a Pity
Big Me (Foo Fighters cover)
Perfect Situation
Why Bother?
El Scorcho
Say It Ain't So
We Are All on Drugs
Surf Wax America
Beverly Hills
Buddy Holly
Photograph/Song 2 (Blur cover)
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Island in the Sun
Undone
Hash Pipe

In Your Honor
All My Life
My Hero
Best Of You
Learn To Fly
Up In Arms
Times Like These
Stacked Actors
DOA
This Is A Call
End Over End
Breakout
Everlong
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Cold Day In The Sun
Monkeywrench