Foo Fighters Run Over Wichita on Concrete and Gold Tour

Colt Coan

Posted on November 16, 2017

It’s amazing to think that 23 years ago, Foo Fighters were formed. They are one of the last true-to-form rock and roll bands in today’s ever-changing climate of music, and they brought the Concrete and Gold tour to Wichita, Kansas for the full head-banging experience. The 2017 fall tour (which has just been announced to extend well into 2018) is roughly half completed, and there was no sense of fatigue with the Foo Fighters.

The show kicked off with up-and-coming rockers from Derbyshire, England known as The Struts. Fronted by the boisterous yet stunning Luke Spiller, with Adam Slack on guitar, bassist Jed Elliott, and Gethin Davies rounding out the quartet on drums. The Struts brought a huge, energetic opener in “Put Your Hands Up” that seemed to have the crowd loving every second of it. One cannot notice the influences of Queen’s late Freddie Mercury in Luke Spiller’s stage performance, vocal stylings and even his outfits to some degree. It’s a nice blend of new and old that somehow manages to fill an excellent position on this tour.

The band played for roughly 40 minutes, bringing the heat towards the end with their anthem “Could Have Been Me” and finishing it up with the extremely contagious “Where Did She Go”. Luke addressed the crowd that he was ill earlier in the performance, but you wouldn’t have known otherwise. This was a performance very worthy of such a large tour, and I see big things for them in the future. See a live photo gallery from the show of The Struts, HERE.

After a brief intermission, you could feel the anticipation build in the air of the INTRUST Bank Arena. Thousands of fans raised the decibels of the arena as a giant Foo Fighters banner dropped from the ceiling, covering the stage. Quickly after, the stage lights were killed and the crowd lights illuminated Wichita, as the fun was about to begin. The banner dropped and the Foo were off to a banging start with “Everlong”. The crowd seemed like children getting dessert for dinner with the band opting to play one of their most infamous songs at the top of the set. Dave Grohl was a madman running from corner to corner of the stage, head banging while putting the work in on his signature custom Gibson Trini Lopez DG-335 guitar, only this one was in gold instead of his signature blue, perhaps out of play with the new album’s name.

Dave gave a promise to the crowd that they were going to go “as long as we can” tonight. He didn’t fail to deliver on that promise, as the show was over 3 hours long, delivering a fair mixture of both old and new school Foo songs. They played songs from all of their 9 albums, to please any and all fans of the Foo Fighters, which made for an amazing thing to hear and see. One of the most amazing pieces from this show was their stage production, with a tilting and rising LCD screen that could move from behind the band, to literally above the band facing down, providing a unique lighting experience. Furthermore, during Taylor Hawkins’ phenomenal drum solo, they brought out the lifting drum riser that only further elevated Hawkins as he showed Wichita his incomparable chops behind the kit.

The band brought a touching tribute to the late Tom Petty with a cover of “Breakdown” that seemed to really hit it home with the audience. The band ended their set with one of their newest and most rowdy singles from Concrete and Gold, entitled “Run”. The crowd was nearly a resemblance to the nursing home from the official “Run” music video, in that there was moshing, head-banging and overall raging. The band came back out on stage after a few minute break for a three song encore, in which they brought out another new song in “Dirty Water” which was followed by a cover of AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock”. The band brought total finality to the night with their classic ballad “Best of You” in which the band transitioned into an excellent jam session that sent the audience home more than happy.

The Concrete and Gold tour seems to be a major success and it’s very easy to understand why. When a band can put on a 3+ hour rock show, and deliver music from every album you’ve ever recorded, and not even give off a slight hint of exhaustion, it’s going to be a show to never forget.

See exclusive photos of Foo Fighters from Wichita, by photographer Colt Coan.