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Two years ago Foo Fighters almost made a triumphant return to New York City.
They performed for a sold-out crowd that summer at Citi Field in Queens — a baseball stadium with room for nearly 42,000 fans — but their fiery set was cut short by Mother Nature: A torrential downpour and fearsome lightning made for unsafe and appropriately ominous conditions.
It was fortuitous in some ways; the next two years for the band would be tumultuous. It was also in 2024 that front man Dave Grohl announced he fathered a child outside his marriage. And then in 2025, the band parted ways with drummer Josh Freese after just one tour, hiring Ilan Rubin to replace him two months later.
Things have since turned around. Last week the band released its 12th full-length studio album, “Your Favorite Toy,” an energetic collection of tracks with an aggressive, fast-paced punk style, distorted vocals and occasional overly compressed production, as The Associated Press’ Dennis Waszak Jr. wrote in his review. Those songs felt at home Thursday night at the much smaller Irving Plaza in Manhattan, a sold-out space with a capacity of just around 1,000, where the larger-than-life rock band brought a sonic immediacy to the intimate venue.
A secret show for a lucky few
Foo Fighters announced two surprise shows Wednesday: one at Irving Plaza on Thursday and another at the Starland Ballroom on Saturday in New Jersey. Tickets were priced at $30, limited to two per purchaser and available only on a first-come, first-served basis at 10 a.m. Thursday at each venue.
Some fans camped overnight. Others lined up long before 10 a.m. The lucky few able to grab tickets to the Irving Plaza show night wore vintage Foo Fighters merchandise into the venue and bought new designs. They swapped stories about the last time they saw the band and theorized about how they would perform on such a small stage.
When the Foo Fighters emerged, it was six minutes after 8 p.m. “How ya doing?” energetic front man Dave Grohl said in greeting the crowd, promising a lot of new tracks and some “old school.”
And the band delivered: 2002’s “All My Life” and “Times Like These” were next to late ’90s hits like “Monkey Wrench” and “My Hero,” and week-old songs “Spit Shine” and “My Favorite Toy.”
“Sometimes I ask the audience if they love rock ‘n’ roll music,” Grohl told the crowd. “I’m not gonna ask you all because I know you love rock ‘n’ roll music.”
Even if the location was stripped down, the band had no interest in a minimized show. There were no pyrotechnics or fireworks or fanfare, sure, but surprises abounded: “Window,” a new song, got its live debut. The band opened a five-song encore with “A320,” its contribution to the oft-overlooked 1998 “Godzilla” soundtrack.
At one moment a concertgoer shouted, “Taylor Hawkins forever!” in memory of the band’s late drummer. Grohl instinctively responded, “That’s right!”
“For those who’ve never seen us before,” Grohl said two and a half hours into the set, “next time we’ll try to make it feel like this.”
Of course next time is likely to be in a venue 40 times the size of Irving Plaza. It gave the still-buzzing crowd something to think about as they exited into a rainy April night.