Live review: Foo Fighters, London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Dave Grohl’s got an instruction for everyone crammed into O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire who has to be up for work in the morning. “Call in sick. Tell your boss that your buddy Dave says it’s cool… Then find another job.”

There’s more than one person deciding “fuck it” as Foo Fighters sail past 11pm and their hope of catching the train home are dashed. And why not? Only on Sunday morning did Foos announce this 2,000-capacity gig – alongside similar dos in Dublin and Manchester, as part of the smash-and-grab launch for Your Favorite Toy that’s also seen them hit Graham Norton and play the album to a select few at a party at Abbey Road Studios – with tickets available by queueing up, in person, “like we used to do it”. Getting in also required going “fuck it” and heading to West London at no-notice, so it’s only right to go the whole hog. Let tomorrow worry about that.

At 2.5 per cent the size of Foos’ last showing in the capital at the 80,000-seat London Stadium, it would be the work of a moment for the rock titans to blow the bloody doors off. But what you also get is a rawness and sweat that only translates properly in places like this.

It “starts right at the beginning” with a rambunctious sprint through This Is A Call and a genuinely feral All My Life, turning the entire floor of the Empire into a bouncing, boiling mass of humanity. It ends two-and-a-half hours later with a very young fan being hoisted out of the audience for his own good, to watch from the stage as the place goes absolutely bananas for a climactic Everlong. In between, there's moments where it feels like having an explosion compressed into a small space, others where it feel like watching them rehearse in Dave's garage.

“Guess what,” he beams at one point. “We love rock’n’roll music!” Because you couldn’t tell by the amount he’s grinning, sweating, grinning, chucking water on the crowd, grinning, screaming extra hard, and grinning. When he promises this is “gonna be a long night, motherfuckers”, never mind those who’ve managed to get in, it’s he who looks like he’s just been given the good news.

And it is a long night. Twenty songs in all, some with lengthy jams, many with fake-out endings. But what might feel like a marathon is simply a massive party. White Limo’s thrashings are brilliantly boisterous, as is the moment when they jam a verse of Ace Of Spaces into the Motörhead-y No Son Of Mine. When things need a tone down for a moment, there’s the gentler Aurora, rarity A320 (“For the old-school motherfuckers”), and the slow-building, always underrated Run. Frequently, the sing-alongs that greet big lads like Times Like These, My Hero and a particularly powerful Best Of You bring out an arms-round-the-shoulders closeness that doesn’t come out so often.

There’s the new this evening, as well. Drummer Ilan Rubin is a killer fit, often of a somewhat looser groove than the late Taylor Hawkins or Josh Freese, but this only adds to the swing of the songs. He even gets a solo (Dave: "An amuse bouche… Shepherd's Bouche is amused"). On his bass drum beams the face of Pat Smear – absent after “He broke his leg in a gardening accident… no, he actually did” – enthusiastically covered by Jellyfish/St. Vincent axeman Jason Falkner. And there’s new songs. We get the forthcoming album’s title-track sounding much beefier live, as well as unreleased punky blaster Of All People.

You’re also reminded that this is the sort of place Foo Fighters – and Dave in Nirvana – came from. Moreover that this is actually the sort of band they are, just popularity gets in the way of getting something like this so often. Seeing Monkey Wrench this close, spilling your beer as you’re swept westward by the heave of the crowd, it's like a time capsule back to how it was when it was brand new.

“I gotta be honest, this is what it felt like 30 fucking years ago,” concurs Dave, admiring the surrounds. “If you hear me laughing in the middle of songs it's because I'm so fucking happy because we're still here. And by we, I mean us.”

It would be easy to say that Foo Fighters have weathered the storms they have because they’re insulated by their sheer size. Too big to fail. What this forgets is quite how much they don't actually want to put it down, either. Even at 57, 31 years in with this band, having had what would surely be most people's fill of this stuff, Dave Grohl is still as excited as someone getting to be here the first time as an opening band.

“I think we should just fuckin’ play here every night,” he suggests. “Why not? A fucking residency for the rest of our lives.” Yeah, go on then. Fuck it.

Read this next:

• Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl: The live shows that made me
• 20 things you probably didn’t know about Dave Grohl
• The 20 greatest Foo Fighters songs – ranked