I got my Foo – and it was VERY good

Last Saturday I finally got to see the Foo Fighters in concert. Oh. My. Good.™
The warm up bands, Hello Stranger and Against Me, were ok but nothing to get excited about. (as an aside I did download Against Me’s latest album and it sounded better than it came across in the concert – worth checking out) We got there at the end of Hello Stranger’s set, had some downtime until Against Me came on, listened to Against Me with medium interest (thank god for earplugs – it was LOUD), got some grub during some more downtime and then the SHOW began.

Dave and the boys came out hard with “Let it Die” and “The Pretender” and the show took off from there. These first 2 songs included an additional percussionist, guitarist, keyboardist, and gal on strings. After these songs the extra players left the stage and it was just the 4 Foo Fighters rocking out. See below for the complete set list with the acoustic songs in parentheses.

Our seats were at the opposite end of the arena from the stage – 11th row. Ok but not great. But then after 9 songs and a drum solo they came to our end of the arena to do an “acoustic” set on a mini stage that was right in front of us. This set included the 4 additional players mentioned above.
I took a bunch of pictures on my iPhone (not the world’s best camera) and have posted them to my Web Gallery to give you an idea of how close we were. Dave finished the set on the small stage singing “Everlong” all by himself – great a song.

They then went back to the main stage to kick it up a notch. They finished up with “Monkeywrench” and “All My Life”. When they left the stage we could see them back stage via a camera with night vision and Dave “negotiated” how many songs for the encore. They came back out and finished up with “Big Me”, “Long Road to Ruin”, and “Best of You”.
Not only was the music great, so was the conversations Dave had with the audience during the concert. I am sure some of it is recycled and used in each concert, but Dave made it feel unique to us and had a great rapport with the audience.

The take away: The Police on their reunion tour were good, Roger Waters doing “Dark Side of the Moon” was great in a historical kind of way, The Foo Fighters were the best concert I have seen in a long time.

One of my buddies was there and here is his review of the concert along with the one of the reviews from Mercury News – here is the other one.

Oakland, CA Set List
Let it Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Learn to Fly
Cheer up Boys (Your make-up is running)
This is a Call
Guitar Battle!!
Stacked Actors
Taylor Hawkins solo
(Skin and Bones)
(Marigold)
(My Hero)
Band Member Intro’s
(Cold day in the Sun)
(But, Honestly)
(Everlong [Starts acoustic])
Monkey Wrench
All My Life
Big Me
Long Road to Ruin
Best of you

Macworld San Francisco Comments

Ok – this definitely falls in the category of better late than never.
During the keynote at MWSF I was making some notes about the new products and what I thought of them. And since I never got around to writing this entry back then, I can also add my comments after having had a chance to think/talk about the new products for a month.

- Time Capsule – Am not really excited about this. My concerns are that the backup over wireless connection will be too slow. I have a big hard drive connected to my iMac that I use as my backup destination.
A month later I have not changed my mind. Do not see the need for an Airport base station with a big hard drive. If I needed to get a new Airport Extreme, the cost differential for the Time Capsule is not worth it to me.

- iPhone updates – I am excited about the new features – will upgrade my iPhone as soon as I can.
After using the new features for a month I have come to really appreciate the ability to “find myself” on Google Maps. It works surprising well. Also using the “webclips” to put links directly to my Google page and others on the Home screen.

- iTunes updates – Not really into renting movies and downloading over the internet.
If I had the proper hardware (AppleTV or Mac mini to connect to my TV) I might feel more positive about these updates.

- AppleTV updates – I like price drop but would most likely get a Mac mini to interact with content on my TV.
A month later this has not changed.

- MacBook Air – I like thiness but I would not use as primary device. Too few connection options and not enough power. Like the remote disk SW to “replace” the optical drive.
A month later feel the same – this would be great to have a 2nd machine to use for travel or to take to meetings or the coffee shop. But when at my desk I like the extra USB ports and the greater horsepower my MacBook Pro has.