Album Of The Week: The Colour And The Shape by Foo Fighters

While Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters are celebrating 20 years as a band and two amazing performances recently at Fenway Park in Boston, MA. I figured I would celebrate by review one of my favorite Foo Fighters albums for the album of the week. The album I chose for today was released on May 20, 1997 and it’s the album The Colour And The Shape and it was an album that represented change in many different ways for Dave Grohl. For starters, the record finnaly had somewhat of a lineup to it to officially call themselves the Foo Fighters as Pat Smear (Guitar) and Nate Mendel (Bass) joined him for this record as official personal while William Goldsmith was credited with playing the drums on some tracks. The second thing is that the album also represented a change in music and lyricism for Dave Grohl as he often aid the album was a therapy session as he was writing actual rock songs with meaningful lyrics. The album’s lyrics dealt a lot with the falling apart of his marriage to photographer Jennifer Youngblood, but it ranges in emotions from sad to happy by the end of the record. The third and final thing is that Gil Norton was brought in as a producer to bring that pop sensibility to launch the Foo Fighters to where they are today. The album itself is the biggest selling album in the US for the Foo Fighters having sold over two million copies and it peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Top 200 charts. The three main singles from the album My Hero, Everlong, and Monkey Wrench all peaked withing the top 10 of the Us Alternative charts and the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks charts.

1. Doll– Dave Grohl has stated that the track is, “basically a song about being afraid to enter into something you’re not prepared for.” The song starts very softly with clean channel guitars before it launches into the next track. 4/5

2. Monkey Wrench– The song explodes right into your speakers with a hard charging riff in this up tempo rock song that Grohl describes, “a song about realizing that you are the source of all of the problems in a relationship and you love the other person so much, you want to free them of the problem, which is actually yourself. It was a riff that turned into another riff that turned into another riff and ended up being a nice little power punk song.” 5/5

3. Hey, Johnny Park!– This is a song that Grohl wrote about a childhood friend that he had lost contact with so he named the song after him hoping that he would get in contact with Grohl. 4/5

4. My Poor Brain– The song starts off very grungy in nature before it gets soft and happy like. Dave says, “This song’s an experiment with dynamics, whether it’s the lyrics or the sound of the song. It’s just going from dreamy vocals to screamy vocals and Jackson Five to Black Sabbath. Sling it all in there.” 4/5

5. Wind Up– This straight up rocker is described by Grohl, “Wind Up is about the press. It has to do with me reading about people that… I mean there’s certain musicians who have nothing better to do than complain, People, that can’t feel fortunate for what they have been given, and if you don’t want it, then fucking just quit and get away from it. It drives me insane when I hear musicians that don’t understand how fortunate they are that they don’t have to go and pump gas for twelve hours a day. They can sit on their couch and smoke pot, and complain to their friends that they hate it when someone comes up and says that he likes their band. And it also has to do with… I mean there are two sides: there’s the reluctant rock-star, and then there is the prying journalist that almost lives for the reluctant rock-star, it’s just talking “about the hand you’ve been dealt.” Every time I hear about “the hand you’ve been dealt,” it drives me fucking nuts, spare me your confessions. And paramania is the joy of complaint, like if you’re a pyromaniac — if you’re a paramaniac, you love complaining about everything. I don’t want to complain about anything, I want people to know that I’m happy doing what I’m doing. I’ve had so many fucking bullshit jobs for the half of my life – you know, working in furniture warehouses and planting trees, painting houses – and it’s a lot more fun to play music.” 4/5

6. Up In Arms– This ballad like song with a an up tempo beat later in the track that is still played live to this day and Dave says it’s, “A typical love song. It’s almost like a Knack song, just a simple pop song.” 4/5

7. My Hero– One of my favorite tracks on the album is Dave’s criticism of our worship of idols. Some fans in the ooast thought the song was about Kurt Cobain, but Grohl says that it was, “(his) way of saying that when I was young, I didn’t have big rock heroes, I didn’t want to grow up and be some big sporting hero. My heroes were ordinary people and the people that I have a lot of respect for are just solid everyday people – people you can rely on.” 5/5

8. See You– The track starts off acoustically and it’s really poopy in sound. Grohk described it saying, 8. See You– The song starts off acoustically and just stays poppy all the way through. You can see why as Grohl describes the track saying, “Just another pop song. It was the one song that nobody wanted to put on the record, but it’s my favourite song. I think that the only reason it ended up on the record was that I re-did the drum track to make it sound like ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen.” 4/5

9. Enough Space-The song starts with a killer bass line and an opening that is pretty cool. The song is hard charging, definitely a good uptempo rock song to enjoy. The song  is apparently based on the movie Arizona Dream which was one of Grohl’s favorite films. 4.5/5

10. February Stars– Rumor has it that this track was recorded during the last session Nirvana ever had between Grohl and Krist Novoselic, but it was reworked and put on this album. 4/5

11. Everlong– This is my favorite track on the record that’s hard charging, but has great pop sensibility to it. The song is said to be about the moment Grohl fell in love with Louise Post of Veruca Salt 5/5

12. Walking After You– Grohl describes this acoustic track as, “It’s an emotional, sappy song about getting dumped.” The song was later re-recorded by the whole band fr the X-Files Soundtrack. 4/5

13. New Way Home– The last track on the record is definitely a scorcher and according to Grohl, “That’s about winding your way through all of these songs, emotions and pitfalls and ups and downs, but at the end of the day, you realize that you’re not scared any more and you’re gonna make it.” 4/5

My Final Thoughts– Obviously when you see a band like the Foo Fighters in concert, there are only so many songs they can play live, but this album is still amazing and relevant. We are going to look at this record 20 years from now and still consider it a classic. I am giving the record 4.2 stars out of five for a final grade.

Foo Fighters Hit Home Run At Fenway For Night Two

Usually during a very hot and sweaty day, I would not be looking all that forward to it, but the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl, and his broken leg were at the legendary Fenway Park for night two of their two night stay. What has been dubbed as the Broken Leg Tour due to an injury he suffered in Sweden brought a different dynamic to the show because he was confined to a throne of sorts. That didn’t damper the mood of any of the fans who were there to rock out no matter what condition Grohl was in and it’s admirable that he has even done. I say that because most bands would have packed it up and called it a day, but not Dave Grohl. Day two of the tour once again featured Royal Blood, a band made up of a bassist and a drummer and local Irish punk heroes The Dropkick Murphy’s. So, it definitely promised to be one heck of an evening filled with rock music and the Fenway Faithful.

The Foo Fighters kicked off their set with a bang playing the very popular and classic Everlong and following that with Monkey Wrench which were obviously crowd favorites by the sounds of the crowd eruption. The band continued to deliver hit after hit, but the real fun of the show began during the playing of Up In Arms as Dave began to tell the story of how he broke his leg in Sweden and how he came up with the moving throne. That wouldn’t be the only moment of fun or unique moments of the night that Dave would provide because he had a whole bag of tricks. During the band introductions, he would play snippets of Let It Go by The Cars which was to evoke emotion from the local Boston crowd, I’m The One by Van Halen, and a special performance of The White Stripes Seven Nation Army that was sung by Dave’s own orthopedic doctor Dr. Lew C. Schon, MD. While I could have been OK with a snippet of the song, they did the whole thing and it actually wasn’t too bad. The show featured acoustic performances of songs like My Hero and Times Like These as well as some cool covers of songs like Under Pressure and a special performance of School’s Out by Alice Cooper with Sully Erna of Godsmack on vocals to give the crowd another local celebrity.

One of the things that Dave Grohl does best is that he is able to get the best out of a crowd no matter what night it is or what city it is. He was able to get the crowd to sing as loud as the crowd possibly could like a true master of their craft could. The crowd gave it their all in return for Dave Grohl giving it his all that night. One of the funnier re-occurring moments of the show was when they would finish a song, the crowd would chant out Foo and if you don’t know it, it sounds like they are booing him, but they weren’t and he acknowledged it a couple of times saying that i freaked him out. One statement that I will make right now is that Dave Grohl with one leg was ten times better than most of your acts that are out there today because this was definitely one of my all time favorite performances. I can only imagine what the man can do when he use of both legs. The Dropkick Murphy’s were definitely another highlight of the night for me as the band blazed through some of the classics that got the crowd going like Tessie, State Of Massachusetts, and I’m Shipping Up To Boston. Overall, it truly was a fun night of rock and overpriced hot dogs, but a night I will never forget.

 

Rock And Metal News: Dave Grohl Breaks His Leg

If I was to say that I was just a little bit worried would be a lie because when I saw the headline Dave Grohl breaks his leg, my heart literally sank. I am going to see the Foo Fighters in concert in July at Fenway Park in Boston and the first thought that came to my mind was that they were going to cancel the show. The band was performing a show in Gothenburg, Sweden when Dave Grohl fell off of the stage breaking his leg in the process during the performance of the song Monkey Wrench. Rght after the incident happened, Dave Grohl addressed the crowd saying, “Ladies and gentleman… I love you too motherf—ers. Now look, I think I just broke my leg. I think I REALLY broke my leg. So look, you have my promise, right now, that the Foo Fighters; we’re gonna come back and finish the show. Right now, I’m gonna go to the hospital. I’m gonna fix my leg, but then I’m gonna come back and we’re gonna play for you again. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. We’re gonna do it, but right now, Taylor Hawkins, you’ve gotta do it. You’ve gotta do it.” So, Taylor Hawkins assumed vocal responisbilities for a bunch of covers before Dave Grohl returned to the stage all bandaged up and in a chair. The singer/guitarist/badass proclaimed, “I may not be able to walk or run, but I can still play guitar and scream.” Now, we are not exactly sure how this is going to affect the tour that I will be attending (it kicks off July 4TH in Washington D.C.), but we’ll have to patient as we wait to hear the news. Below you will see a picture of the X-Ray as well as some fan filmed footage at the show.