What happened when Foo Fighters headlined Mad Cool Festival

“Alright motherfuckers, you wanna dance? Let’s dance!” The question Dave Grohl poses as his merry men hit the stage is surely a rhetorical one, as it seems pretty much everyone here on the first day of Mad Cool is here for Foo Fighters. And they are up for it.

Having last played this particular summer weekender back in 2017 on the Concrete And Gold tour, Madrid’s premier rock festival have been waiting a long time for the giants to return, and from the off it’s pandemonium amongst the 50,000-plus revellers, belting out every lyric into the still warm night sky. In fact you’d be hard pushed to find anyone incapable of singing along to the most unfuckwithable opening throw of All My Life, The Pretender, and Times Like These, all still popping with the same urgency and excitement that they initially instilled. Indeed, Dave frequently reminds the crowd tonight that Foos have been at it for over three decades now, and, despite having just dropped a new album, are digging into all corners of a back catalogue that most artists could only dream of – from the “old school” Stacked Actors to an incredible, euphoric My Hero to the lung-busting Best Of You.

Like an infinite hotdog eating contest, it is banger after banger, and a deafening reminder of just how beloved Foos are and still continue to be. This might just be one of many enormo-gigs in their diary for the summer, following two nights at Anfield last month and NOS Alive tomorrow night, but there’s no semblance of road-weariness as the perma-charismatic Grohl never misses a step or looks anything less than absolutely stoked to be playing rock’n’roll with his friends – for tens of thousands of new friends – during the whopping two-and-a-half-hour set.

There is little by way of stage banter, excluding the odd trademark “Hey!” thrown in, but as Dave reminds us, “we have too many fuckin’ songs so we’re just gonna keep on playing because we don’t wanna waste any time.” And with two dozen songs crammed into the set, you can’t accuse Foos of not giving bang for your buck, as the positively joyous Learn To Fly and Monkey Wrench slot in alongside the likes of Wheels and Aurora – dedicated to the late Taylor Hawkins.

All of these songs and more have long been part of the lexicon of rock’n’roll, so much so that they feel like they belong to the people rather than those who wrote them. Looking around Mad Cool, you see young friends embrace, dads showing off their air guitar chops, pints held aloft, and countless smiles beaming out at Dave’s pearly whites doing the same on the huge screens. It’s shows like this that stand as a reminder that Foos are for everyone, and while they might be wily veterans at this point, there’s no going through the motions or phoning it in. Every show matters because their music matters to so many.

As the inevitable encore rolls round, Dave signs off, “Thank you very much for the last 31 years, you’ve made our lives so beautiful.” And judging by the thunderous, cathartic response to Everlong, Madrid could say the very same thing back again. A special night for one of rock’s true greats. Long may they continue.

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