Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This was a gig 17 years in the making and you just sensed the Foo Fighters wanted to squeeze everything out of it that they could.
A set that lasted two and half hours (half an hour less than initially promised) more than made up for this long wait between drinks.
Last night's show at the Derwent Entertainment Centre, part of the group's Sonic Highways world tour, was the first in the Tasmanian capital since 1998, when the band was just three years into its life.
A lot has changed for Dave Grohl and his cohorts since that night, when they had just two albums to their name.
If any of the 7000 people in the venue were unaware what they had been up to in the years in between, they would have realised by about 11pm.
The sell-out crowd was treated to pretty much all of the hits from the group's eight studio albums over the course of the evening.
But these weren't really the songs as we know them.
They were the dragged out versions. The extended plays you could say.
Tracks that would normally go for about three minutes or four minutes were stretched out as far as they could be.
Even with the longer performances, the fast pace of the set did not diminish from what you would expect.
In fact, the Seattle rockers at times did not even stop to take a breath, and just jumped from one song to the next.
The up-beat tempo had a lot to do with one man, the playful and vibrant Grohl.
Seemingly unable to stay still (and performing a lot of the set without any shoes due to the heat), he was more than happy to ham it up to the crowd, and get them involved vocally on songs.
He was also more than happy to also have this level of fun with his fellow bandmates (Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear), ensuring that while he was the man out the front, this band is a group effort.
For the Foo Fighters, this was a different, smaller show than the rest of their Australian tour and Grohl seemed to enjoy being closer to the crowd.
Away from the stadiums, they were happy to throw in some songs (like Hey, Johnny Park!), which they had not played on this visit to the country.
There were the tracks you would expect, like The Pretender, Best of You, Rope, These Days, Dear Rosemary, Monkey Wrench, Learn To Fly, Breakout, My Hero and Everlong, with each song sung with more gusto than the last.
Yep, for Tasmania it was a long wait to see these guys playing here again, but last night ensured that it was a wait that was very much worth it.
