Rock n Roller 17: Foo Fighters

The Rock n Roller 17 tour comes to a raucous end when we attended the Foo Fighters concert in Salt Lake City. As many of my rabid readers may know by now, Foo is my wife, Michele’s favorite band and it was an early Christmas gift to go to this show.

We flew in on Monday night after we both had to take final exams before we left school. Right when we arrived at the airport we found out we were upgraded to first class! It was Michele’s first time and it was an awesome flight. We shared dinner and a movie at 30,000 feet and felt rested for once on the flight to Seattle.

We arrived late in Seattle and decided to get a room for a few hours to crash. To me there is nothing worse than trying to sleep in the airport overnight. It is well worth the 55 bucks we paid to stay at the Red Roof Inn which is a quick shuttle ride away.

Back at the airport by 6 am and boarding our short flight to SLC, we arrived by 9:30 local time and rented our car. Again, another upgrade! This time to a huge Ford Expedition! I guess it pays off to travel this much in a year. This year I flew over 40,000 miles on Alaska Airlines alone, which allowed me to become an MVP Gold Member and get 50% miles.

It was colder in SLC than it was in Alaska and there was snow in the forecast. Since we couldn’t check into our hotel until 1pm we needed something to do. We headed into the city and stopped at a visitors center near the state capitol building and the guy suggested we head up the mountain to Snowbird and take the tram up to the top.

We drove about an hour into the mountains and arrived at the ski-resort. These are much different than those that I am used in Colorado. But even with their boosting of “The Greatest Snow on Earth” almost all of the runs were closed because of lack of snow.

The ride in the tram was fun! Of course we were the only ones on board not dressed head to toe in ski gear. I was wearing khaki pants and a hoodie and much the same with Michele. We had a good, but expensive, lunch at the summit and looked around a bit before heading back down.

We made it back into town just in time to check in to our room and get a bit of rest before we headed to the show.

The concert was at the Vivint Arena, the home of the NBA Utah Jazz. We scored a parking spot right across the street for only 10 bucks. By far the cheapest parking of any concert I have ever been too. The arena was very nice. We ate NY style pizza and cheese steaks and headed to our seats.

Our seats were great! Section 119 row 11. It gave us a great view. The show started promptly at 7:30 with Bob Mould opening. This old dude can rock. He played for about 45 minutes. The Foo Fighters announced that they would start promptly at 8:45 and that they did!

My god! The Foo’s played one song after another with so much energy. It was non-stop for over three hours. By far one of the longest sets I have ever heard. As they said they have been a band for 22 years and they play songs from every album including songs by Alice Cooper and Queen and a great tribute to Tom Petty.

Michele was loving it. I think she sang every single song! Her fist was pumping in the air and that could be said with just about everybody in the packed arena. This is my second time seeing the Foo Fighters and the other time was at Red Rocks almost 10 years ago also with Michele. I did not remember this kind of a show then. There was a reason why they say they are the #hightestpaidgarageband ever!

Dave Grohl is awesome. He clearly loves what he is doing and loves engaging the fans. Several times he stopped to get the fans going and all of us obliged. I think I knew almost all of their songs except the new Concrete and Gold stuff. Toward the end of their set they invited up a little girl and her dad that were standing in the front row. Evidently the little girl had fallen asleep and now she was sitting stage left with the best seats in the house. What a cool gesture.

The Foo’s left the stage preparing for an encore and Dave and his drummer Taylor popped up on the video screen at the back of the stage in an awesome give and take with the audience about how many songs they were going to play to end the show. We all decided on four! They played a mini second concert belting out a Clash tune and ending the show in an awesome performance of Everlong replete with lasers and smoke.

By far one of my favorite concerts of all time. In fact we see them again in April at the Welcome to Rockville festival to kick off Rock n Roller 18 and again in Seattle in September. Oh yeah, did I mention that they are Michele’s favorite band?

We were back at the airport the next morning for a long day heading back home. We were only in Salt Lake for about 24 hours but it was worth every minute of it.

What a way to wrap up a year of rock shows and roller coasters. We cannot wait to get back on the road again in the new year!

 

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