Tonight, We Rocked Along With You, Everlong!

Foo Fighters @ Hyde Park, London,
June 17th 2006

I was there,

So was Matt,

And Chris O too,

So it was remarkably hot and sticky in London’s Hyde park for this awesome rock show courtesy of Dave Grohl and invited friends. First to grace the stage were Juliet and The Licks. Odd this as the Subways were due to play last time I heard but hey, you have to roll with the punches. She was lively and fun, rockin’ quite hard for so early in the day in the burning sun plus she was very hot, yup a pvc skintight outfit could not have been good, hehe.

Second on stage was the sleep inducing Tom Delonge “Look at Me” side project Angels and Airwaves. This dreary, boring, crap was cringe inducing and should really have been relegated to playing in a row boat on the serpentine. Also Tom’s peace and “Stop War” rabble did nothing but send the remaining few who were still awake to also take to the floor and have a snooze.

Mr Flowers enjoying Angels and Airwaves

Things started to get really interesting when Queens of the Stone Age took over proceedings. Their brand of heavy riffage and powerful thundering rolling rock was just he ticket to kickstart the evening. Josh all in black including dyed hair threw most people until the first chords were struck, abolishing any confusion. This was a good set playing many hits such as “Song for the Deaf”, “No One Knows”, “In My Head” and “First It Givith”. Yet I was slightly disappointed, as good as they were I was expecting more. This probably down to not being shook to my very foundations due to less that shuddering sound levels out of the wall of speakers ahead. Maybe a trip to see them indoors will satify more.

The unmistakeablea and enduring face of one of the UK’s top Rock legends was next to rock this crowd and that’s exactly what they did! Lemmy, bassist and lead vocalists for Motorhead was his usual self, shouting out his growly vocals and driving basslines had the crowd jumping. Lead guitarist was also playing as if the year was 1970 and they were headlining at Donnington. Relentless solo’s and melodic hard rock made this definitely the highlight of the day so far. Ok, every song sounded more or less the same but i comes down to the question, “Who Cares?” its worked for them for 30 odd years and still have a fanatical fan base (more Motorhead Tees, that Foo’s on the day). Of course there could only be one top track (the one we all knew) and the whole crowd howled “The Ace Of Spades, The Ace Of Spades” along with Lemmy.

Anticipation for the headline act has risen to stellar levels by this point and when the Foo Fighters did appear to the wall of sound intro of “In Your Honour”. Dave looking as ever, so uncool that it’s cool screams “Can You Hear Me!”, there’s only one response from the crowd and that was loud and clear. The Foo’s blasted through a mammoth set which not only included all the classics, “Learn to Fly”, “Breakout”, “Monkey Wrench”, “My Hero” but even had time to throw in a track from his other band Probot as well as being joined onstage by Lemmy for a track I’ve never heard…seems that and Lemmy go hand in hand.

After a superb set the London crowd were waiting just for a magic moment to turn this good gig into a great one. This duly arrived and what a WOW moment it truly was. Back from the encore, the drummer decided to bring in some freddy mercury mannerisms and chants followed by the unmistakable drum beat of we will rock you. Good but still not great, but if the drummer is singing who was manning the sticks? The conversations goes..

RockOSaurus  – “Is that Roger Taylor?”
Mr Flowers – “Dunno?”
RockOSaurus – “Errm, i think it is”
Mr Flowers – “might be”

…Dramatic pause…

RockOSaurus – “Ahh! there’s Brian May!”
Mr Flowers – “Oh yea, woo!”
RockOSaurus – “It is Roger Taylor, It’s Queen”

So the remaining members of Queen joined Grohl for a romping rendition of one of my favourite Queen tracks “Tie Your Mother Down”, seeing Dave and Brian two masters of rock onstage together was a sight for anyone’s eyes and together they were awesome, really can’t describe the awe factor. It was one of my all time greatest moments at a gig and will take a long time to be topped again. The exit of Queen left the stage rather bear, almost a stage half empty rather than full. In this moment there really was only one thing which could rival the moments precedings. Dave strutted out on the huge walkway which spanned the entire golden circle and stood almost in the crowd some 50m from stage and lead a downbeat crowd led version of “Everlong”. This was the crowning and final moment of the gig at which the show ended and everyone trotted off home safe in the knowledge that “Wow! I was there!!.”

The SCREAM says a thousend words!