I Really Need To Make More Friends

....i'm in tears right now because I missed this on saturday.

"On a typical Saturday Night at the Air Canada Centre you'd find roughly 18,000 people wearing Leafs jerseys and chanting "Go Leafs Go!" but this past Saturday was slightly different. The Foo Fighters made their way into town to a sold out crowd of 20,000 plus and instead of seeing Leafs merchandise you saw Foo Fighters T-shirts and chants of "Foos Foos Foos".
Opening for the Foo Fighters were Against Me!. Having listened to their recent album New Wave for a couple of months, I was excited to see how they were live. Normally an opening band won't fill up the seats, but these guys had a huge following and filled up more than what I expected. They played for a good 45 minutes to an hour. They played a number of tracks from New Wave including Stop!, New Wave, Thrash Unreal, Borne On The FM Waves and more! Overall I thought they played a good show.
While waiting for the Foos to come on stage I noticed a long catwalk that connected the main stage to an unknown circular area. We all had no idea what that was for until later on in the show. Once the Foos hit the stage everyone and I mean everyone was standing! They opened the show with Let It Die from their latest album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. Then they followed it up with their smash The Pretender. Then Dave Grohl asked the crowd if they have been to a Foo Fighters concert, and a loud roar responded. Then he asked the crowd if this was their first Foo Fighters concert and another loud roar responded. Dave decided that the crowd was split 50-50 of newcomers and old-timers. He then assured us that this was going to be a special show. What was going to make this show special? Well for one the Toronto show has been the biggest the Foo Fighters have played in Canada, that they had some special guests, they were going to play some old shit, some new shit and some acoustic shit! From then on I knew it was going to be a great show!
They followed up Dave's speech with hit after hit including 'Times Like These, Break Out, This is A Call, Stacked Actors, Breakout, and Cheer Up Boys'. I guess Dave was right by playing older, heavier, foo fighters tracks.
After that set of tracks Dave, Nate, and Chris walked off stage leaving Taylor Hawkins to do his drum solo. After a couple of minutes of his drum solo Taylor introduces special guests of the night - Rush! RUSH! Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee of Rush joined Taylor Hawkins on stage and jammed to Rush's hit YYZ. Once they fished jamming Dave comes on stage and yells 'RUSH! RUSH!' Mr. Grohl indeed came through with his promise of the show being a special one, and he wasn't done either!
As the crowd was going nuts because Rush were on stage I noticed that they started to uncover the circular area at the end of the catwalk. Still not know what it was the band started walking down the catwalk. As they are walking a second, smaller, stage emerges from the rafters! It's time for the Foos to play some acoustic shit!
They kicked off the acoustic set with Skin And Bones followed by Marigold. During the acoustic set Dave introduced everyone on stage and gave solo's to violinist Jessie Green and to percussionist Drew Hester who ended up performing a triangle solo! Then came My Hero. I am positive that every single body in that place was singing this song. It came to a point where Dave Grohl didn't have to sing, he encouraged all to sing and the crowd ended up taking over the vocals for the song. It was great! After that sing-a-long I knew that this was the best show I've been to and they were only half way through their entire set! Then came Taylor's turn to take lead vocals on Cold Day In The Sun, followed by But, Honestly and closing the acoustic set with Everlong. Another song that Mr. Grohl really didn't have to sing. He went to each of the mics on the second stage and sang to each side of the crowd! This guy knows how to work a crowd! Towards the end of the song it went from acoustic to electric and Dave ran along the catwalk and jumped back onto the main stage and rocked out to finish off the track!
Asking the crowd if they were done they ripped into Monkey Wrench followed by All My Life to finish up the concert. During the encore break the screens showed the band backstage with the set list, focused in on Dave putting yup a finger to indicate a single song encore. The crowd got loud when he put up two fingers and the crowd went crazy when Taylor stepped in the put up all ten fingers. Storming onto the stage to perform their encore Dave Grohl told us a story about his first trip in Toronto when he got to play drums for Iggy Pop as a 19 year old. Finishing off his story they started the encore with the 1996 hit Big Me followed by Long Road To Ruin and 'Best Of You' which were both huge singalongs!
If you were at the show, let me know what you thought of it.
Full Setlist:Let It Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Learn To Fly
Cheer Up Boys
This Is A Call
Stacked Actors
YYZ (f. Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson of Rush)
Skin And Bones
Marigold
My Hero
Cold Day In The Sun
But, Honestly
Everlong
Monkey Wrench
All My Life
Encore:Big Me
Long Road To Ruin
Best Of You"

Courtesy of www.muchmusic.com