100. Foo Fighters

Milton Keynes Bowl

6 September 2015

There’s something faintly absurd about declaring a “road-trip” when the destination is Milton Keynes, a place that, while technically on a map, exists primarily as a cautionary tale about what happens when urban planning is left in the hands of people who think culture begins and ends with a retail outlet and a multiplex. Blistering sunshine, the smell of newish leather in my mate’s almost-new Porsche, and the stereo doing god’s work. We pretended Buckinghamshire was Route 66 and with every mile we racked up, the grim prospect of Milton Keynes began to fade into the rear-view of relevance.

Milton Keynes Bowl turned out to be less a “bowl” and more a giant grassy crater, a steep-banked amphitheatre carved out of the earth and surrounded by fields that smelled faintly of silage masked only by the aroma of frying onions rising like a cloud from the army of burger vans. T-shirt bootleggers had set up camp on every patch of scrubland, offering merch of dubious legality and even more dubious spelling.

First up, Iggy Pop. From our lofty perch near the rim of this hill, the godfather of punk resembled a tiny, shirtless action figure, one that had been left in the sun too long and slightly melted. However, even from that distance you could feel the energy: raw, unkempt, heroically topless, an appetiser of primordial rock before the main course.

Then came the Foos. This gig was the make-good for their cancelled Wembley show, Dave Grohl having recently swan-dove off a Swedish stage and shattered his leg. Lesser mortals would have postponed the tour. Grohl built himself a motorised “Iron Throne” of guitar necks and carried on like rock’s most cheerful handicapped warlord. His usual hyperactive Muppet persona was confined to seated gesticulation but even strapped to a sci-fi wheelchair he radiated more enthusiasm than most frontmen generate at full sprint.

I have always preferred the Foos live to the Foos on record. Their albums are solid; their gigs are life-affirming. Add in Grohl’s documentary detours (Back and Forth, Sonic Highways) and you’ve got a band that understands mythmaking almost as well as riff-making.

Tonight, the mythology got a turbo-boost when John Paul Jones and Roger Taylor ambled onstage for a thundering cover of Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure,” with the late, great Taylor Hawkins belting out Freddie’s lines whilst Pat Smear windmilled his guitar like a medieval berserker.

Three hours later, we joined the great post-gig migration up the grassy banks, attempting not to fall into hedges or open drainage ditches in the darkness. Our ears rang but somehow, it almost made Milton Keynes feel like rock ‘n’ roll Valhalla.