nt</div>n</div>nttt</div>ntttt</div>n”,”data”:[{“divId”:”div-gpt-dsk-tab-bb-list-in-list1-uid0″,”displayType”:”medrec”,”targeting”:[{“key”:”pos”,”value”:”in-body1″},{“key”:”pos”,”value”:”in-list1″},{“key”:”pos”,”value”:”in-list”},{“key”:”pos”,”value”:”mid”},{“key”:”refresh”,”value”:”240″}],”lazyLoad”:”no”,”lazyLoadMultiplier”:2,”zone”:”lists/in-list1″,”sizes”:[[300,250],[300,251]]}]}},{“ID”:1236236254,”position”:1,”positionDisplay”:2,”date”:”2026-05-01 10:03:48″,”modified”:”2026-05-01 10:05:50″,”title”:”A Monstrous Encore”,”subtitle”:null,”slug”:”a-monstrous-encore”,”caption”:””,”description”:”ntttt
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nt“We’re gonna do something we didn’t do for a long time,” Grohl said as the band returned to the stage for its five-song encore, introducing “A320,” from the soundtrack to 1998’s Godzilla</em>. “Anybody see that masterpiece? Listen, I love Matthew Broderick just as much as the next guyu2026</p>nnnn
nt“We recorded this song and then we were SO excited it was gonna be in the Godzilla movie,” Grohl continued, turning to longtime Foos guitarist Pat Smear. “We went to the movie theater while we were on tour, do you remember that? We were in the Midwest somewhere. I don’t think I’d ever gone to a movie theater on tour in my life. And we sat through that entire, three-hour, umu2026 epic. And we were like, ‘S–t, they didn’t put our song in!’ And it was at, like the tail-end of the credits. So we’re bringing it back.”</p>nnnn
ntIt was the fourth time the band has played the rarity this year u2013 but only the eighth time in its history, because its 2026 revival follows a 25-year hiatus.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:””,”url”:”https://www.billboard.com/lists/foo-fighters-irving-plaza-best-moments/”,”image_id”:0,”image”:””,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:[],”pmc-gallery-m”:[],”pmc-gallery-l”:[],”pmc-gallery-xl”:[],”pmc-gallery-xxl”:[]},”fullWidth”:0,”fullHeight”:0,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
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ntFor all the pomp that defines the Foo Fighters today, Grohl still cherishes his punk roots. After eight songs, he told fans he loved “the enthusiasm” but to make sure that nobody got hurt.</p>nnnn
nt“The second time I saw Iggy Pop play, I was like, ‘I’m gonna do a stage dive!’” Grohl reminisced. “I f–king grew up doing stage dives. And I got all the way to the front of the f–king venue, and I jumped to the middle of the barrier, and two security guys dragged me outside and f–king opened the door with my head. And they were about to kick my ass, and I was like, ‘I’m out! I’m out!’ The end.”</p>nnnn
ntGrohl then thanked the audience for standing in line to get the show’s coveted tickets, and sharing the unusually intimate evening with the band. “This oddly feels much more at home and familiar to us,” he said u2013 before adding, in a classic bit of Grohlian puckishness, “This is our last song,” some two hours before the concert actually ended.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:””,”url”:”https://www.billboard.com/lists/foo-fighters-irving-plaza-best-moments/”,”image_id”:0,”image”:””,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:[],”pmc-gallery-m”:[],”pmc-gallery-l”:[],”pmc-gallery-xl”:[],”pmc-gallery-xxl”:[]},”fullWidth”:0,”fullHeight”:0,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
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ntFoo Fighters played six of the 10 songs from Your Favorite Toy</em>, and it was remarkable just how neatly they slotted in with the band’s classics. Many have hailed the album as a “return to form” u2013 a bit of an oversimplification of Foo Fighters’ creative evolution and offering over the last couple decades u2013u00a0but it’s undeniable this is the band’s most straightforward, no-frills material since at least 2011’s Wasting Light</em>. And it bodes well for Foo Fighters’ upcoming festival and stadium dates that, even if highlights like “Caught in the Echo,” “Of All People” and “Spit Shine” reverberated through Irving Plaza with punk ferocity, it was easy to imagine them echoing similarly into the upper decks of the world’s biggest venues.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:””,”url”:”https://www.billboard.com/lists/foo-fighters-irving-plaza-best-moments/”,”image_id”:0,”image”:””,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:[],”pmc-gallery-m”:[],”pmc-gallery-l”:[],”pmc-gallery-xl”:[],”pmc-gallery-xxl”:[]},”fullWidth”:0,”fullHeight”:0,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
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ntFour years after his death at age 50, longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins still looms over Foo Fighters. Midway through the set, as the band kicked into 2011 power ballad “These Days,” Grohl smiled in agreement when a fan yelled the late drummer’s name.</p>nnnn
nt“I’m glad whoever it was shouted Taylor’s name,” Grohl said after the following song, another 2011 power ballad, “Walk.” Prior to the show, he explained, an old friend had been showing him Foo Fighters pictures from 20 years earlier.</p>nnnn
nt“Sometimes it feels like no time has passed at all; sometimes it feels like it’s been a f–king lifetime,” he reflected as the band geared up for emotional fan favorite “Aurora,” from 1999’s There Is Nothing Left To Lose</em>. “But, every time we do this song, we do it for Mr. Taylor Hawkins.”</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:””,”url”:”https://www.billboard.com/lists/foo-fighters-irving-plaza-best-moments/”,”image_id”:0,”image”:””,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:[],”pmc-gallery-m”:[],”pmc-gallery-l”:[],”pmc-gallery-xl”:[],”pmc-gallery-xxl”:[]},”fullWidth”:0,”fullHeight”:0,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
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ntYou can take the band out of the stadium, but you can’t take the stadium out of the band. For every Grohl promise of a deep cut u2013 which, to be clear, he delivered on in spades u2013the band had corresponding megahits. “This is not a deep cut,” Grohl said during the iconic introduction to 2007’s “The Pretender,” still the longest-running Foo Fighters Alternative Airplay No. 1.</p>nnnn
ntAs fans began to wave their arms to the music, Grohl encouraged them: “You can use stadium hands! That’s what I call them, stadium hands.</p>nnnn
nt“You know, sometimes I ask the audience if they love rock and roll music,” he continued. “I’m not gonna ask you if you like rock and roll music, because you’ve got f–kin’ stadium hands right now!”</p>nnnn
ntFor “The Pretender,” and so many other cuts throughout the night, the crowd of superfans raged, turning the club’s floor into a mosh pit. “Jesus f–king Christ!” Grohl yelled in genuine amazement when the song ended.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:””,”url”:”https://www.billboard.com/lists/foo-fighters-irving-plaza-best-moments/”,”image_id”:0,”image”:””,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:[],”pmc-gallery-m”:[],”pmc-gallery-l”:[],”pmc-gallery-xl”:[],”pmc-gallery-xxl”:[]},”fullWidth”:0,”fullHeight”:0,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null}],”galleryCount”:”6″,”galleryID”:”1236236236″,”previousPageLink”:””,”nextPageLink”:””,”template”:”item-featured-image”,”ordering”:”none”,”galleryTitle”:”6 Best Moments From Foo Fightersu2019 Manhattan Club Show”,”isList”:”1″,”logo”:[],”i10n”:{“backToArticle”:”Back to Article”,”backToAllGalleries”:”Back to All Galleries”,”backToReview”:”Back to Review”,”backToAllReviews”:”Back to All Reviews”,”thumbnail”:”Thumbnails”,”nextSlide”:”Next Slide”,”prevSlide”:”Previous Slide”,”skipAd”:”Skip Ad”,”skipIn”:”Skip In”,”of”:”of”,”missingSomething”:”You’re missing something!”,”subscribeNow”:”Subscribe Now”,”next”:”Next”,”nextGallery”:”Next Gallery”,”closeThisMessage”:”Close this message”,”closeModal”:”Close Modal”,”closeGallery”:”Close Gallery”,”startSlideShow”:”Start Slideshow”,”lightBox”:”Lightbox”,”scrollUp”:”Scroll Up”,”scrollDown”:”Scroll Down”,”look”:”Look”,”readMore”:”Read More”,”showLess”:”Show Less”,”vertical”:{“photo”:”Photo”}},”ads”:{“rightRailGallery”:{“html”:”t
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/* ]]> */
The stadium-sized alt-rockers sold out a decidedly smaller room on Thursday –and treated the Irving Plaza audience to songs from their scrappiest album in years and some of their biggest hits.
Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters at the after party for ‘Studio 666’ held at TCL Chinese Theatre on February 16, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Christopher Polk/PMC
There is an inherent spectacle and scale to a Foo Fighters show. Stadium-sized riffs, wild animations on towering screens, maybe even some fireworks. Dave Grohl getting his cardio in and ending up drenched in sweat as he bounds across the massive stage, guitar slung over shoulder, to the cheers of tens of thousands of fans.
But, at their heart, the Foo Fighters are still just scrappy garage-rockers, a crew led by a teenage punk who grew up to be in the biggest band in the world –and then founded one of the biggest bands of the 21st century. Grohl is still that DIY kid at heart, just one who happened to write several of the most enduring alt-rock anthems of all time.
That side of Foo Fighters was on display Thursday night at a packed Irving Plaza, the 1,200-capacity Manhattan venue where Grohl and company popped up for a “secret” (read: announced with just a day’s notice) show celebrating their twelfth studio album, Your Favorite Toy, which arrived April 24. The lucky few who got in lined up for an in-person onsale at 10 a.m. day of show, and if the cavalcade of 30 years of assorted tour merch was any indication, the audience was composed of true Foos diehards, even if a surprising contingent responded when Grohl, during the show, asked who was attending their first Foo Fighters show.
Stripped of all its grandiose accoutrements –a backdrop with the spartan “FF” logo was the extent of the show’s production – the band proved that the true spectacle of a Foo Fighters concert is the band’s mind-bogglingly deep catalog (“There’s like 170 of these f–kin’ songs,” Grohl quipped when a fan asked him to play an old one he admitted they didn’t know) and their passion and synchronicity as performers.
It’s reassuring consistinency and longevity for a band that has lived through triumph (a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, reopening Madison Square Garden after its COVID closure) and turmoil (drummer Taylor Hawkins’ sudden death, Grohl’s much-publicized infidelity) this decade. For two-and-a-half hours and 25 songs at Irving Plaza, Foo Fighters reaffirmed its spot as a canonical American band – not that that’s something anyone who has turned the radio dial to an alt-rock station in the last 30 years doubts.
Read on for the best moments from the band’s Manhattan underplay.
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Come For the Hits, Stay for the Deep Cuts
“I feel like we should play some old-school s–t,” Grohl told the crowd with excitement as the band took the stage. “Let’s start out with the oldest school we’ve got.” To open, Grohl busted out “Winnebago,” which he initially wrote and recorded for his Nirvana-era solo project Late! and then rerecorded during the sessions for the Foo Fighters’ debut. That version of the song appeared as the B-side for the debut’s closer “Exhausted” –which Grohl trotted out as the encore’s penultimate song, explaining that it used to close the band’s early shows.
And the crate-digging wasn’t confined to Foo Fighters’ oldest material. “We got a deep cut –who wants a deep cut?” Grohl said a few songs into the show before unexpectedly launching into “La Dee Da,” an album track from 2017’s Concrete & Gold, and the only song from that album the Foos played on Friday.
It’s a testament to the band’s deep catalog and staggering commercial success that although it played five Alternative Airplay No. 1s at Irving Plaza, it left seven on the table – and that while the setlist contained 14 Alternative Airplay top 10s, 20 other Foo Fighters songs with that distinction remained unplayed.
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A Monstrous Encore
“We’re gonna do something we didn’t do for a long time,” Grohl said as the band returned to the stage for its five-song encore, introducing “A320,” from the soundtrack to 1998’s Godzilla. “Anybody see that masterpiece? Listen, I love Matthew Broderick just as much as the next guy…
“We recorded this song and then we were SO excited it was gonna be in the Godzilla movie,” Grohl continued, turning to longtime Foos guitarist Pat Smear. “We went to the movie theater while we were on tour, do you remember that? We were in the Midwest somewhere. I don’t think I’d ever gone to a movie theater on tour in my life. And we sat through that entire, three-hour, um… epic. And we were like, ‘S–t, they didn’t put our song in!’ And it was at, like the tail-end of the credits. So we’re bringing it back.”
It was the fourth time the band has played the rarity this year – but only the eighth time in its history, because its 2026 revival follows a 25-year hiatus.
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Club Nostalgia
For all the pomp that defines the Foo Fighters today, Grohl still cherishes his punk roots. After eight songs, he told fans he loved “the enthusiasm” but to make sure that nobody got hurt.
“The second time I saw Iggy Pop play, I was like, ‘I’m gonna do a stage dive!’” Grohl reminisced. “I f–king grew up doing stage dives. And I got all the way to the front of the f–king venue, and I jumped to the middle of the barrier, and two security guys dragged me outside and f–king opened the door with my head. And they were about to kick my ass, and I was like, ‘I’m out! I’m out!’ The end.”
Grohl then thanked the audience for standing in line to get the show’s coveted tickets, and sharing the unusually intimate evening with the band. “This oddly feels much more at home and familiar to us,” he said – before adding, in a classic bit of Grohlian puckishness, “This is our last song,” some two hours before the concert actually ended.
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The New Material Rips
Foo Fighters played six of the 10 songs from Your Favorite Toy, and it was remarkable just how neatly they slotted in with the band’s classics. Many have hailed the album as a “return to form” – a bit of an oversimplification of Foo Fighters’ creative evolution and offering over the last couple decades –but it’s undeniable this is the band’s most straightforward, no-frills material since at least 2011’s Wasting Light. And it bodes well for Foo Fighters’ upcoming festival and stadium dates that, even if highlights like “Caught in the Echo,” “Of All People” and “Spit Shine” reverberated through Irving Plaza with punk ferocity, it was easy to imagine them echoing similarly into the upper decks of the world’s biggest venues.
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Taylor’s Enduring Legacy
Four years after his death at age 50, longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins still looms over Foo Fighters. Midway through the set, as the band kicked into 2011 power ballad “These Days,” Grohl smiled in agreement when a fan yelled the late drummer’s name.
“I’m glad whoever it was shouted Taylor’s name,” Grohl said after the following song, another 2011 power ballad, “Walk.” Prior to the show, he explained, an old friend had been showing him Foo Fighters pictures from 20 years earlier.
“Sometimes it feels like no time has passed at all; sometimes it feels like it’s been a f–king lifetime,” he reflected as the band geared up for emotional fan favorite “Aurora,” from 1999’s There Is Nothing Left To Lose. “But, every time we do this song, we do it for Mr. Taylor Hawkins.”
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Stadium Hands Held High
You can take the band out of the stadium, but you can’t take the stadium out of the band. For every Grohl promise of a deep cut – which, to be clear, he delivered on in spades –the band had corresponding megahits. “This is not a deep cut,” Grohl said during the iconic introduction to 2007’s “The Pretender,” still the longest-running Foo Fighters Alternative Airplay No. 1.
As fans began to wave their arms to the music, Grohl encouraged them: “You can use stadium hands! That’s what I call them, stadium hands.
“You know, sometimes I ask the audience if they love rock and roll music,” he continued. “I’m not gonna ask you if you like rock and roll music, because you’ve got f–kin’ stadium hands right now!”
For “The Pretender,” and so many other cuts throughout the night, the crowd of superfans raged, turning the club’s floor into a mosh pit. “Jesus f–king Christ!” Grohl yelled in genuine amazement when the song ended.
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