The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters rocked a raving crowd last night
at Thompson-Boling Arena.
The show began around 7:10 p.m. when the opening band Muse took the stage –
the sparsely populated Thompson-Boling Arena was only about half full at
the time. Considering that the group is fairly new and the audience didn’t
show much support, Muse did surprisingly well.
After Muse, The Foo Fighters began to pump up the crowd with some great
music. Dave Grohl, the band’s front man, was a little disappointed to see
someone in the front row sitting down through the first song, so he decided
to help the audience get into the music a little bit. Grohl immediately
came down into the crowd and played the next song sitting with the
fans.
This concept might seem a little intimidating to some people, but Grohl was
very charismatic and really made the crowd go crazy. The group played some
old favorites like “Big Me,” “Everlong” and “My Hero” along with the new
songs. During “Stacked Actors,” Grohl once again took to the crowd. He made
his way all around the floor before returning to the stage and finishing
the song. The Foo Fighters definitely get brownie points for making the
audience feel that they were a part of the music and not just mere
spectators.
From the first moment the Chili Peppers walked onto the stage, the audience
overflowed with enthusiasm. They opened with “All Around the World” from
their latest album, Californication. While many of the songs in the
set were from the new album, the Chili Peppers mixed it up with hits “Give
It Away” and “Under the Bridge,” and earlier songs like “Me and My Friends”
and “If You Had to Ask.”
Band member Flea had a few things to say to some of the front-row crowd at
the show – as was evident when he leaned over to speak with them between
songs. When the Chili Peppers left the stage, the crowd began cheering
louder and louder and chanted for just one more song to complete the
evening.
Prompted by the enthusiastic audience to return to the stage, the Chili
Peppers pleased the crowd with an encore of “Soul II Squeeze” and “Power of
Equality.”
For one evening, Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers transformed
Thompson-Boling into a pulsating mass of rock ‘n’ funk energy.
