Day One of Virgin Festival features…FOO FIGHTERS, BLOC PARTY, THE KOOKS, THE FRATELLIS, AGAINST ME!, MGMT, WINTERSLEEP, CONSTANTINES, SPIRITUALIZED and more!

The Foo Fighters…

Having commemorated their tenth anniversary with a year-plus run commencing with a double studio album hailed by the New York Times as “an unexpected magnum opus,” a sold out arena tour built on that first disc’s rock foundation followed by a toned down and intimate theater trek that highlighted the softer side showcased on that record’s second half and capped off by a headlining gig at London’s Hyde Park for a crowd of 85,000, the question looms larger than any in the Foo Fighters’ career to date: What do they do for an encore? More

Post from: Toronto Unplugged

Toronto Unplugged relies on many great people to provide us with our gig reviews. The founder of Martin’s Bike Shop has been rockin’ gigs for years and was lucky enough to catch the Foo Fighters Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre. Sunday night we rocked til the wee hours of the morning playing Rock Band and chatting about the show. Here is Mr. Martin’s feedback on the Foo’s show…

“I’ve been to a lot of events at the Air Canada Centre; concerts, Leafs and Raptors games, but none compared to the energy I witnessed on Saturday night. Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters put on one solid rock show.

People were complaining when the ACC was first built that the acoustics were poor and it wasn’t conducive to motivating the home team. Apparently the crowd attending just never had anything to cheer about. Grohl is a pure entertainer and made a point of saying, “you can either have the bargain show, or we can give you the best fucking rock how you’ve ever seen.” He provided nearly 20,000 fans with the latter.

Hitting the stage at 9:30pm the band blasted the audience with every hit ever written, plus a stellar acoustic set. We even had the pleasure of witnessing Rush joined by Taylor Hawkins on drums to play “XYZ”. I’ll be honest, Rush was probably the last band I would’ve liked to see make a guest appearance, but the crowd enjoyed it. It was a nice touch.

The set ran for 2 hours and change leaving myself and everyone around me begging for more. The highlight was Grohl’s acoustic version of “Everlong” as it ramps up to the rest of the band joining in at the end. Their encore was also spot on with Jesse Green accompanying Grohl for a jazzy twist on “Big Me”. Bottom line, check out a Foo’s show if you haven’t already, and give a listen to Against Me! – great opening act.”

Post from: Toronto Unplugged