Hel-lo, I've waited here for you, Everlong

Saw the Foo Fighters last night at the Continental Airlines Arena. ("What's the Continental Airlines Arena?" I asked the husband, when he gave me the tickets on my birthday. "The Meadowlands," he said.)

It was great.

Some band named Hot Hot Heat opened, and that's enough said about that. Then Weezer took the stage. I've never been a big fan but the songs I did know are good; they were very engergetic and put on a good show.

But the hit of the night was the Foo Fighters. If you don't know who they are and you're still bothering to read this post, the Foo Fighters are the band that Dave Grohl formed after the end of Nirvana over ten years ago. They've put out five albums and songs on a bundle of compilations, and if you listen to commercial rock radio you've heard some of their songs.

That's kind of odd for me, because I don't listen to commercial radio. I listen to public radio, WXPN for music and WHYY for news/interest programming. Needless to say neither one plays a whole lot of hard rock. I realized halfway through the concert that I didn't know which songs they'd play because I had no idea what all the singles were. I play the whole albums on the iPod instead.

The band was amazing. Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins have a huge amount of energy and it translated into a fast-moving stage show. Well-designed lights and media rounded it out. Roger Taylor, the drummer from Queen, made a surprise appearance at the end and performed "Tie Your Mother Down" with the band. Very cool.

We hadn't been to an arena rock show in years. We thought we'd be the oldest people there but while we were in the top half, we certainly weren't the oldest. I did remember to plug my ears so I wouldn't have that hour of deafness afterward, something I never did when younger. One thing has changed- no one lights their lighters in the dark at concerts any more; they hold up their cell phones instead. Thousands of phone cam pictures were taken last night.

Another amazing part- we left with the crowd after the show, and somehow got from the parking lot to the Turnpike in two minutes. Honestly, 120 seconds after turning on the car, we were zipping through the EZPass lane. That's never happened before nor will again.

Excellent band, great show, good time.