Four years since they last graced our shores, the biggest and most enduring rock band of the last two decades brought their Sonic Highways tour to Australia to support their eighth studio album. The Delta Riggs kicked off proceedings, and what a way to do it. For a band who most of the crowd that had assembled at that point had never heard of, they took to the big stage like a duck to water. They tore their way through six or seven choice rock cuts including the brilliant single The Record’s Flawed.
Rise Against arrived onstage not too long after and had a great reception from their existing fans, particularly up the front. They shared some great thoughts on the importance of supporting rock music but overall didn’t appear to win over any new fans.
Half an hour later, the lights vanished and Etihad Stadium gave a roar tenfold, similar to what greets a match-winning goal from outside 50. Dave Grohl appeared first and sprinted down the long catwalk into the crowd in a fashion belying his 46 years, followed by his remaining bandmates. They launched into Something From Nothing, which sounds good live but was the first song to expose the awful sound that would barely resonate around the stadium for the next few hours. However, this song and the other two from the new album sounded great alongside older material, even if they didn’t get a great response from the crowd.
Older tracks like My Hero, Learn To Fly, Monkey Wrench and All My Life were the highlights, except many of these tracks were elongated so much they doubled in length, which did start to get a little tedious. Halfway through the show, Grohl took to the end of the catwalk and did a brilliant acoustic version of Wheels involving a massive scale sing-along from the crowd. He was then joined up on the catwalk by the whole band to play Times Like These,followed by four straight covers. Under Pressure was sublime, and showed off drummer Taylor Hawkins’ vocal ability.
The final six songs were performed back on the regular stage and they left the best for last. Finishing with Best of You and then the hauntingly epic Everlong. Witnessing Everlong live with 55,000 people is a truly special experience everybody needs to do at least once in their lives. The gig lasted two hours and 45 minutes despite only being 25 songs in length. Losing most of the covers, keeping the songs closer to their original length and playing for an hour less would’ve made the gig pack more of a punch and feel less like a marathon. It seems the band just really enjoy playing. No one in the crowd seemed to mind and appeared to be left wanting more.
BY ALEXANDER CROWDEN
Loved: Everlong sing-along live.
Hated: Grohl screeching the vocals too much.
Drank: The cheap stuff.
