Only the coolest man in rock & roll could casually walk out onto a stage, look out over the crowd with his hands on his hips and say, “Just so you know, we like playing in the fucking rain” and then calmly start strumming his guitar, all alone, and have the crowd erupt into a massive roar of affirmative screams. Black shades, black t-shirt, black jeans, hair a mass of black disgruntled curls, chewing gum, calm as only a confident, non-arrogant rock star knows how to be. Then with a twitch of his leg, as “Times Like These” progresses, his band-mates slink onstage to pop it wide open.
The main stage had been the hot spot all morning on this last day of Jazz Fest in New Orleans. With local band Supagroup feeding the noontime revelers with some fierce don’t-expect-us-to-wake-you-up-slowly rock & roll, it was straight up that hill from then on. Galactic followed featuring hyper drummer Stanton Moore, Trombone Shorty and former Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover, who jumped the rail and ran madly down the walkway through the crowd, coaxing them to let loose in a “Cult Of Personality” funkified rage.
And then the rain came: big, heavy, fat drops that plopped in a thud on your arms and head, bringing on the jubilant sighs of the thousands cooking in the heat. Most fans, as they had done last weekend preparing for Bruce Springsteen, went running for sacred spots in front of the stage as soon as the gates were opened. The Foo Fighters had never played Jazz Fest before and everyone wanted them as up close and personal as they could possibly maneuver.
Only a few front-men could get away with berating the crowd for its piss poor singing ability and live to continue the song. Dave Grohl has a stage presence not many musicians possess: he is comfortable, he is wild, he is playful and he is spontaneously combustible. He can mock you for singing a lame version of the chorus to “Breakout” by mimicking the lazy, weak way you just did it: “That’s a noble attempt at singing the chorus but when was the last time you heard me go, ‘You make me break out’? That’s not how you do it. At all,” Grohl said, giving his followers one of THOSE looks. “We wouldn’t play this big ass stage if I fucking sang like that … It goes like this.” And off the band went into powerhouse drumming, screaming guitars and hump-a-doodle bass throbs.
With “The Pretender” coming early in the set all the way up through the closing “Dear Rosemary/Breakdown/Everlong”, it was a Foo Fighters mash up at breakneck speed. “We like to play as long as we can, “Grohl spouted before kicking off “Learn To Fly”. “So I hope you don’t mind if we just play until we feel like we’re going to barf … If you want to hear a couple hours of music, we’ll try to go there for you.” And you knew that if they could get away with it, they wouldn’t stop till dawn.
When Taylor Hawkins, sweating himself even skinnier while pummeling the skins in temps nearing the 90’s, asked if anyone would like to see Grohl play drums, he hopped down from his kit to sing vocals on “Cold Day In The Sun”. The rapport between the two so-called best friends is easy-going, so when Grohl was picking on his drummer it veered into the playfulness that lurks in Grohl’s personality. “I’m going to sing this little love song to my favorite drummer,” Grohl said sweetly as Hawkins climbed back on his drum kit. “John Bonham.” And to his crew, after taking a short sip from a beer can, “Do these come in cold too?”
A special moment during the set came when it was announced that it was guitar player Chris Shiflett’s birthday. Bringing out a cake and having everyone sing “Happy Birthday” made this feel more like NOLA’s own special show as well as giving Shiflett a priceless memory. Not that “Monkey Wrench”, “My Hero”, “This Is A Call”, “Rope”, “Walk” and “Best Of You” – which caused Grohl to exclaim “I don’t think I want to stop!” – weren’t memorable enough. And like Grohl, we didn’t want them to stop either.
