Foo Fighters Live in Perth

Who: Foo Fighters
What: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace Tour
When: 21 April 2008
Where: Burswood Dome, Perth

Setlist:
1. Let It Die
2. The Pretender
3. Times Like These
4. Breakout
5. Learn To Fly
6. Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
7. This Is A Call
8. Stacked Actors

Acoustic Segment
9. Skin And Bones
10. Marigold
11. My Hero
12. Cold Day In The Sun
13. The Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners
14. But, Honestly
15. Everlong (semi-acoustic)

Rock Segment
16. Monkey Wrench
17. All My Life

Encore:
18. Big Me
19. Long Road To Ruin
20. Best Of Me

Review:
If there ever was a time I had to use the F-word, this would be it.

THE CONCERT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!

Haha, it was. That's the only way to do it justice.

I arrived at the Burswood Dome at about 6:45pm, later than expected. SS was already there waiting for me. There were already quite a lot of people there, and we began to buy our merchandise.

There were quite a few designs available, and I ended up buying 2 T-shirts and the tour poster specially commissioned for the Australia and NZ leg. Spent A$100 for the first round.

The doors opened at 7pm and we went in. I was eager to go in early because we were holding the standing tickets. There were 2 standing pens and ours was the one that was further back, so it's not right in front of the stage. Nevertheless, we still got to stand almost at the front of the barrier, and directly facing where Dave Grohl would stand on the stage, just that we were 50m away.

Kaki King opened the show, and she demonstrated her amazing finger-picking technique. I have never seen anyone play the guitar like that before. But besides that, her set was a little boring. Another local band came on after that, The Mess Hall. They were a 2-man band and they were actually pretty good. Reminded me of The White Stripes.

But that was just a warm-up. At about 8:15pm, the lights dimmed once again and the Foos came on stage. There was a catwalk ramp leading from the stage to our area, and Dave Grohl walked all the way to the end of it, so he was just 5m away from where I was standing!


They then launched into Let It Die, the second track off their new album. It's not a single but they decided to open with it, instead of The Pretender. But it was a good opening song. I almost had the chills when Dave started singing. The Pretender followed and had the whole arena singing to the chorus.

It was fast and furious as Times Like These came on, followed by Breakout. It was hit after hit as Learn To Fly and Cheer Up, Boys (I was cheering like mad) came on too. After that, they played This Is A Call, which is one of the songs that they haven't performed in a while, and I was really happy to hear it.






They then did Stacked Actors, which featured a drum solo by Taylor Hawkins. It's pretty similar to the arrangement on their previous tour I watched on DVD, but always better hearing it live.

After that, they slowed things down with an acoustic set, which was actually my least favourite part of the concert. That's because they decided to perform Skin And Bones and Marigold, which are more obscure and so-so only lah.

Continuing the acoustic set, they then did My Hero (what a pity it's acoustic, but it still managed to rouse the crowd), Cold Day In The Sun, featuring Hawkins on vocals (he can't sing for nuts) and The Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners, featuring Kaki King.

They performed this song specially because Kaki King is Australian, and the Beaconsfield Miners (whom the song was dedicated to) were Aussies as well. It was a good performance and I learned to like the song even more.

Rounding off the acoustic set, they did But, Honestly, from the new record. I wasn't expecting them to perform this, but it was a pleasant surprise to hear it. I thought they would have performed Come Alive from the new record instead of this. After that, Dave said, "Give me back my electronic guitar." Yes, he said "electronic", not "electric".

And he launched into Everlong, solo first. It's my favourite FF song ever, and I'm glad he didn't play the whole song acoustic. The full band version rocks.


From that point on, it was super high energy all the way as they played Monkey Wrench and All My Life. All My Life was nuts. It was my favourite song that night. It's already an awesome song, but when you hear it live, it's 10 times even more awesome. I was head-banging so hard and screaming till I was hoarse.


Then they left the stage. But after a while, the screens projected the setlist for the night, using those night vision cameras. As the camera moved up and down, you could see the list of songs they had been played already. And suddenly, you see Dave's cheeky face holding the paper and making a monkey face, it was damn hilarious.


The crowd was cheering and asking for an encore, and Dave teased us by raising 2 fingers, motioning that they will do two more songs. The crowd groaned naturally, then the camera panned to Hawkins, who was euqally cheeky, and indicated "five". The crowd roared. Then it went back to Dave, and he teased us again before finally indicating "three". Damn funny!

They came out and did Big Me (semi-acoustic version), Long Road To Ruin and Best Of Me. Awesome-ness.

Dave was damn funny throughout the whole concert and talked a lot. He joked about how they weren't awesome a few years back but they are now, all because they have the world's greatest.......triangle player (they added a percussionist to the line-up). And he made the percussionist perform a triangle solo and claimed it was the World Record for the largest audience to witness a triangle solo voluntarily. Damn funny.

It was a mind-blowing concert and I enjoyed it immensely. It was worth it to spend all that money to make the trip to Perth just to watch it. This concert is officially Number One on my all-time favourite concerts list!

After the concert, SS and I went out and I bought another round of merchandise. Bought another hoody sweater and poster, blowing another A$80 in the process. So the total damage was A$180. Oh man.

It's a real pity the Foos didn't stop by Singapore. The concert would have been sold-out and they would show Singaporeans how a rock concert should be done. And Singaporeans can then learn how to head bang the right way. Pity, but then again, I managed to catch the show. I'll not forget it in a hurry. Awesome.