Some 57-year-olds might spend the anniversary of their 1969 birth cashing in on a free
desert at Olive Garden or sharing a low-key bottle of Pinot with friends and family. But
Dave Grohl and his band of 31 years, the Foo Fighters, celebrated the singer’s birthday
in 22 songs across more than two sweaty, uplifting hours. “This is some loose-ass rock
‘n’ roll” Grohl shouted. “We don’t play to computers!”
Instead of getting gifts, Grohl and co. gave them: the show benefited Hope United
(Hope The Mission x LA Mission), an org working to eliminate poverty, hunger, and
homelessness. Grohl’s own onstage celebrations included several swigs from a
Jägermeister bottle, a birthday cake with fake candles… and the vociferous love of
thousands in attendance. Lots of young-middle-aged dads with teens and tweens in tow
and a requisite amount of geezers and millennials were treated to the Foos on a
revolving stage in the middle of the venue. Sans any stage frills or furbelows, Grohl’s
energy translated even when his back was to a portion of the arena. “I know you want
the full-frontal,” the shaggy, gum-chewing frontman joked.
Festivities kicked off with “My Hero,” dedicated to guitarist (and former Nirvana
bandmate and Germs bandmember) Pat Smear, who offered up birthday wishes via
video, his injured, booted leg visible. Smear’s guitar duties were ably handled by Jason
Falkner, an L.A. stalwart who is a guitar veteran of Jellyfish, Beck, St. Vincent, and
seven of his own solo albums.
The rest of the band were O.G. Foos, with the exception of drummer Ilan Rubin, who
joined the band in 2025, replacing beloved drum veteran Josh Freese, who had himself
succeeded the late Taylor Hawkins in 2023. Playing behind a singer who is also a
revered and stellar drummer and replacing the seemingly irrepressible Hawkins is a tall
order. Rubin definitely rose to the occasion, a powerhouse player, his hard-hitting
bashing delivered with a creative and finessed sensibility.
Fans hoping for super-star guest cameos—Slash, Paul Stanley, Lemmy, Trombone
Shorty and David Lee Roth, among others, showed up at the same venue for Grohl’s
2015 birthday show—were disappointed. But there was nothing disappointing in the
band’s locked-in performance, energy, or passion, with Grohl as the seemingly tireless
flashpoint, even as he joked about his age.
Befitting a radio-friendly superstar rock band, the gig was essentially a greatest-hits
show, touching on the best and most popular songs across 11 albums from 1995 to 2023. Solos—of the guitar and drum sort—were welcome and not indulgent. “All My
Life,” “Times Like These” and “The Pretender” showcased the band’s signature ferocity,
a bashing, ferocious dynamism with singalong choruses.
The meaning of songs like “Times Like These” change with the times; the “it’s times like
these you learn to live again…it’s times like these time and time again,” speak as much
to the cyclical nature of love as it does the state of the world, for a timeless appeal.
The 1995 tune “This is a Call,” the band’s first-ever single, is a chills-inducing musical
emancipator, followed by the dark, thundering gallop of “No Son Of Mine,” featuring a
quick “Ace of Spades” riff with Grohl shouting out Lemmy, Motorhead a clear influence
on the tune. That zeal was quickly tempered by “Under You,” with Grohl performing solo
on an electric guitar, noting, “I think the last time we played here was for the [2022]
Taylor Hawkins Tribute show.” As suits the times, the song was received with a sea of
phone-flashlights-as-lighters.
The death of seemingly irrepressible Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022 was the
first awful thrust into an unwanted spotlight for Grohl, who stayed largely out of the
public eye for a while and only recently started to reemerge.
Although Grohl’s birthday bash was less star-studded than many in the audience
seemed to expect or hope, the ambassador for rock ‘n’ roll proved worthy of the title. If
“Aurora” and a scant few of the more than nearly two dozen cuts were humdrum in a set
full of bangers, the Foo Fighters give arena rock a good name. Even the man of the
hour seemed to sense the shift, reigniting the crowd with “time to start screaming balls,”
after a gentler aural interlude.
Ultimately, Grohl leaves it all on stage. Following the encore of “Everlong,” he ran
manically energetic laps around the stage, his band eventually straggling behind their
exuberant leader. Grohl exhorted the crowd: “scream like you’re a 57-year-old having
the time of your life!” And even the jaded teens with their nerd-dads obliged.
