Concert review: How was Foo Fighters show in Charlotte NC?

If you’re a Foo Fighters fan who wasn’t able to be at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte on Thursday night for Dave Grohl’s band’s “Everything or Nothing at All Tour” show, the short answers to your burning questions are:

1. 2 hours and 49 minutes.

2. Once, for sure. Possibly twice.

And 3. Absolutely, positively sensational.

Let’s deal with these in order, shall we?

QUESTION NO. 1: HOW LONG WAS THE CONCERT?

I think that, by now, anybody who knows anything about Foo Fighters knows their live shows are liable to be marathons. Ultra-marathons, even.

Never was this statement more true than the last time the rockers were in Charlotte, four tours and coming up on 12 years ago. (They really did seem to be trying to avoid us, didn’t they?) It was September 2012; it was the Democratic National Convention; it was The Fillmore Charlotte, where the group had booked a Rock the Vote concert benefit; and it lasted about 3-1/2 hours according to some of the roughly 1,000 in attendance, or closer to four according to others.

Either way, legend strongly suggests it was the longest concert the band has played. Ever.

But at the outset of Thursday’s highly anticipated return, as he often does, Grohl warned the sold-out crowd of a potentially alarming eventual running time — “It’s gonna be a loooong night, motherf------!” — and then tried all night to speak that into existence.

I mean, if there’s one thing Foo Fighters don’t like to do, it’s play their songs by the book. Or by the album, rather. If there’s a way for them to rock out with a song longer in a live setting, to stretch it out more, to split it up into pulse-pounding chapters with cliffhanger endings, they will.

If they can, say, do a quirky little call-and-response thing during a break in the middle of “The Pretender” (with Grohl hitting heavy-rock chords as the call and the crowd shouting some variation of “wooo” or “whoa” as the response), they’ll do it. In this case, Grohl did that in the middle of the 2007 hit, then shushed fans till it got as quiet as an amphitheater full of 20,000 people can get, belched loudly into the mic, and picked right back up with the song where he left off:

I’m the voice inside your head

You refuse to hear

I’m the face that you have to face

Mirroring your stare I’m what’s left, I’m what’s right

I’m the enemy

I’m the hand that’ll take you down

Bring you to your knees

Then, here, Grohl stopped the song cocked his head, put his hand on his hip, and for 25 long seconds just stood staring and smirking as he soaked in the screams of the crowd ... before getting back to getting after it:

So, WHOO are YOUU? Yeah, WHOO are YOUU? Yeah, WHOOO are YOUUU??

YEAH, WHOOO ARE YOUUUUUU??

After that, there were more guitar flourishes, extra drum fills, additional choruses — we’re still just talking about “The Pretender,” mind you — and in the end, a song with a studio run time of 4 minutes and 30 seconds clocked in at 7:30 on the stage.

“Nobody’s doing one of those little 1-1/2-hour long shows tonight,” Grohl shouted once that song was over. “Nobody’s doing one of those f------ little 2 hours shows tonight. Nobody’s doing one of those

shows tonight, motherf------ . ... You spent your hard earned money on this f------ gig. So we’re gonna give it to you.”

They most definitely did. The above was just one example. In similarly electric fashion, most of the setlist’s 23 other songs also were supersized.

QUESTION NO. 2: HOW MANY TIMES WAS TAYLOR HAWKINS MENTIONED?

It’s been more than two years now since the longserving Foo Fighters drummer died — suddenly, at age 50, while on tour in South America. The U.S. portion of the same tour, which was set to wind through Charlotte that spring, was ultimately canceled.

Some wondered aloud whether the band would cease to exist without Hawkins. But it did eventually rebuild, with Josh Freese stepping in as the new drummer; and while the former member for Guns N Roses (among many other bands) is perhaps lacking his late predecessor’s sense of humor, Hawkins’ edge, and Hawkins’ facial elasticity, Freese can punish his equipment at a blistering pace that’s astonishingly adept in its own way.

When Grohl finally got to Freese during his band intros, he called him “the guy that made it possible for us to come out and play for you ... tonight.” As the gushing continued, Freese smiled but also appeared to be fighting back tears.

Meanwhile, all in all, Foo Fighters kept their remembrances of Hawkins to a bare minimum.

Instead, Grohl dedicated “My Hero” to Steve Albini — who was the recording engineer for Grohl’s old band Nirvana and died this week at 61 — by saying, “Tonight I’d like to dedicate this song to a friend that we lost ... who I’d known a long time. He left us much too soon. He’s touched all of your lives, I’m sure.”

The same words could have been said for Hawkins. they have been? I’m going to let decide.

In any case, Hawkins eventually did get a brief but touching nod, near the end of the main set, when Grohl introduced “Aurora”: He said the deep cut off 1999’s “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” album was chosen because it was Hawkins’ “favorite Foo Fighters song.” (But I swear I heard Grohl tee up “These Days” 40 minutes

with a “Let’s do this one for Taylor, ”—the “too” being worth flagging because I also would swear Hawkins hadn’t yet been mentioned at that point.)

Finally, perhaps most curious of all to moreserious fans of Foo is that Hawkins wasn’t talked about by Grohl before the band performed “The Glass,” which has been widely publicized as a tribute to the late drummer.

I don’t know. My guess, I suppose, is that it’s too hard for Grohl to talk too much about Hawkins.

At the same time, Charlotte hasn’t seen the band since his passing. So I can understand fans who were hoping for more.

QUESTION NO. 3: HOW WAS THE SHOW OVERALL?

In the end, a show isn’t necessarily a good show. Neither is a concert that makes you cry automatically a winner.

Rather, to fully captivate an audience and keep them hanging on every sung and spoken word — in this case for 2 hours and 49 minutes — you need the person who’s running things to really, REALLY know what they’re doing. And that’s Dave Grohl.

One could take issue with the setlist here and there. Personally, for instance, I didn’t love the decision to make a long version of “The Teacher” the first of just two songs in the encore. But it’s virtually impossible to complain about the dizzying, dazzling fashion in which the 55-year-old Grohl leads his crew of five.

He’s a force of nature with a shaggy mop of black hair worth whipping, an electric guitar slung over his shoulder, a stick of chewing gum between his teeth, and a stream of profanities and jokes. (“If you know the song, f-----sing it. If you know it? Look at that dude next to you in his mid-50s and just f------ do what that guy’s doing.” “You guys want another Foo song? You want more f-----songs? I don’t know, it’s up to you . ... I don’t have a job to go to tomorrow. This is it.”)

As for highlights, the aforementioned “Pretender” and the showmanship he injected into it is one. Two, I’d point out “Monkey Wrench,” which included more blistering guitar runs, more astonishing drum solos by Freese, and another clever interlude.

“I heard you screaming your f------ a-- off about an hour ago,” he shouted at the crowd with the song on pause. “I don’t want y’all to hurt your voices. But can you still f-----scream?” For close to 30 seconds, it screamed back at him. Then Grohl said, “Lemme show you how the consummate professionals do it.” He cleared his throat, loudly, right before shrieking through the bridge:

One last thing before I quit

I never wanted any more Than I could fit into my head

I still remember every single word you said

And all the s--- that somehow came along with it

Still, there’s one thing that comforts me

Since I was always caged and now I’m free

By the time they were through, the Foo had created a monster of a “Monkey Wrench,” with what was originally a four-minute song extended across nearly eight minutes.

I could go on highlighting great performances. There were at least a dozen. But I’ll point out just one more — after I point out this:

The most memorable

moment of the night came when Grohl was introducing band members Freese, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee and Pat Smear. Smear, the oldest in the group by nine years and a fan favorite for twice that long, finished rhythmguitaring his way through a snippet of the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” when the crowd began showering him with a very long, very loud ovation.

It lasted 80 seconds, most of which he spent blushing and laughing in apparent disbelief.

“Well, I know where Pat’s not moving to anytime soon. He’d never get out his front door!” Grohl quipped, before adding, “OK, for the record, that’s the biggest f------ applause Pat Smear’s ever had in our 30 years.” Fans burst into raucous cheers for Smear again, for 40 more seconds, which this time ended with Grohl handing his friend a bottle of Jagermeister to take a pull from.

Anyway, I point this out 1) because it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen at a Foo Fighters concert, but 2) because it figures into the last highlight I want to mention — the finale, an hour and 45 minutes later.

As the clock turned the corner past 11 p.m., Grohl looked out across the massive crowd representing the city he’d not played in a dozen years, smiled, and said, “I hope to see you all again someday. I don’t know when that might be. Maybe when Pat moves to Charlotte, then we’ll come play and hang out.”

The crowd roared its approval back at him and Smear both, deafeningly.

“Maybe that’s what we’ll do,” he continued. “In which case, I don’t have to f------ spend anymore time talking sappy goodbyes and s---. I hate saying goodbye — and I never f------ do, ’cause I just imagine I’ll see you again sometime, so —”

Grohl paused for dramatic effect, and the crowd thundered again. “So I’ll just say this:” It was a goosebumpinducing way for Foo Fighters to launch into the famed opening riff of “Everlong,” setting up a euphoric rendition — one that didn’t feel even remotely close to long enough.

FOO FIGHTERS’ SETLIST

1. “Bridge Burning”

2. “No Son of Mine”

3. “Rescued”

4. “The Pretender”

5. “Times Like These”

6. “La Dee Da”

7. “Breakout”

8. “Medicine at Midnight”

9. “Walk”

10. Guitar Solo / “Sabotage” / Keyboard Solo / “Blitzkrieg Bop” / “Whip It” / “March of the Pigs”

11. “My Hero”

12. “The Sky Is a Neighborhood”

13. “Learn to Fly”

14. “Arlandria”

15. “These Days”

16. “Shame Shame”

17. “All My Life”

18. “Nothing at All”

19. “The Glass”

20. “Monkey Wrench”

21. “Aurora”

22. “Best of You” Encore:

23. “The Teacher”

24. “Everlong”