Foo Fighters Concert Worth 16 Year Wait

There are only a handful of rock bands from the past 20 years that I would consider Hall of Fame material. Dave Grohl happens to be in two of them. Grohl and Foo Fighters  left it all on the stage during last night's two and a half hour show at the First Niagara Center. This was the first time that the Foo Fighters had played a show in Buffalo, so the crowd was especially enthusiastic.

"How many of you have never seen the Foo Fighters?", Grohl joked. "We've been practicing for 16 years, so we could play for you tonight."

Grohl's sense of humor combined with his charisma makes him a great frontman. Watching Nirvana in the early 90's, I never would have guessed what a musical genius he was. The Foo Fighters were the mad creation of Grohl following the death of Kurt Cobain. Their first album he played all the instruments, then hired a bunch of guys to play it live. Most notably, Taylor Hawkins on drums who is still Grohl's right hand man during his on-stage antics.

Every Foo Fighters album since has seen the band mature musically, and their latest album Wasting Light" is probably their heaviest and sounds intense live.

Surpirse of the night? Former Nirvana bandmate Krist Novaselic playing accordion with the band. Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the album 'Nevermind' so this was a real bonus for Grohl's Nirvana fans.

During the 5 song encore, Grohl opened with an acoustic set on a second stage near the endzones of the arena and treated the fans in the cheap seats to "The Best of You", and "Times Like These".  The rest of the band returned during "Times" and concluded with "Dear Rosemary", a cover of Tom Petty's "Breakdown" and "Everlong".

It took us 16 years to finally see the Foo Fighters in Buffalo. But you won't hear anyone that went to last night's show complaining.