Live Review: Foo Fighters, Weezer, Cosmic Kahuna

21 January 2018 | 2:36 pm | Mark Beresford

"The fierce performance and raw energy the Foo Fighters gave Perth is something we've never witnessed before and is one any fan will have to see while they still can."

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For the Australian rock music community, a Foo Fighters gig is an entity unto itself, spoken of and hyped for months once announced, fans pull all stops to make sure they're passing through that stadium gate on the day. The Foo admirers are dedicated, excited and no matter what your position on the band, manage to create an electric atmosphere even just on approach to the venue. It's instantly apparent at NIB Stadium for this one.

Melbourne's Cosmic Kahuna were staring at a challenge before they even arrived in WA, each city got a local support while an 'imported band' was arranged for Perth and they weren't seen favourably. Couple that with their style of tunes - surf punk pace with assault rifle riffs toned down to a sludgy thrash sound - and the crowd were left completely lost. To the band's credit, their set was a fierce starter that held nothing back with an effective middle finger salute to those who didn't enjoy, but most punters responded by choosing the shaded bars over a being initiated on a sun-drenched pitch regardless.

Surprisingly and despite having only visited our shores once in the past 20 years, Weezer were greeted to a similar nonchalance from the masses. Certainly not helped by a cluttered and muddy mix initially, In The Garage and Surf Wax America both fell completely by the wayside with reactions on the band's faces to match. Though in Pork & Beans the right dynamic seemed to finally be found between the group, their set was themed by the ebb and flow from feel-good party to stone-cold waiting and then back again. While the choice of tracks was a fan's delight, half a dozen 'Blue Album' gems thrown into the mix, it was simply a lucky dip as to what was going to shift the band and crowd into symbiosis. As a feeling of a 'wasted' Weezer tour began to rise, the unmistakable intro of Pixies' Where Is My Mind slotted everything together and things took off from there. The blissful harmonies of Say It Ain't So and Island In The Sun closed out a set that in the end saw the smallest of smiles from Rivers Cuomo.

It's likely that a 'short' Foo Fighters show doesn't actually exist, the band even joke of it themselves on stage, pounding out near three hours of music every night. Despite this knowledge, every punter in attendance still screamed, sweat and danced as though every song was the last from the moment Run filled the amplifiers.

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Standing beneath a massive lighting rig that shifted into a different configuration for every song and blasting a stunning array of songs into the Perth sky, the six members kept tightly knit and perfectly in sync, making the huge stage feel slightly intimate and still giving room for the stage antics of one Mr David Eric Grohl. The frontman beamed with energy and charisma at every moment, sprinting the stage from left to right, taking off down the runway into the crowd, and giving some of his sharpest live vocals heard in years.

While more accessible and radio-friendly singles become more prevalent on Foo Fighters records, and therefore setlists, the band have still kept to their guitar rock heart with the raw rock thrashings and screaming banshee vocals from All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo sounding outstanding, despite the arena's sound-swallowing size. Packing their time with an assortment of big show trickery including teasing intro riffs, extended jam outros, elevated drum risers and a setlist that stretched to 24 tracks, none of it quite outshone the power of the band's intent to give every single person in the crowd the night of their lives. Genuinely adoring their time on stage, the band drew the crowd in continually with an infectious enthusiasm. Toying with Queen covers, dedicating tracks to a small kid against the barrier, refusing to let a bodyguard crush the skull of a stage invader (looking at you "Jevin with a J"); it was all given with the sort of flawless performance that shouldn't be obtainable while energising a crowd of 20,000.

After so many tours of Australia, it can start to feel a little repetitive to see the same production almost annually from the one band, but the fierce performance and raw energy the Foo Fighters gave Perth is something we've never witnessed before and that any fan will have to see while they still can.