Foo Fighters mark Dave Grohl's birthday — and support a good cause — at the Forum

Dave Grohl had a solution successful caput for anyone who didn’t cognize the words to the opus helium and the different Foo Fighters were astir to play Wednesday nighttime astatine Inglewood’s Kia Forum.

“Look astatine the aged feline adjacent to you and conscionable f—ing sing that,” helium told the crowd, stringy achromatic hairsbreadth matted to his sweaty, reddened forehead. “Odds are he’s been listening to KROQ since the f—ing aboriginal ’80s.”

Wednesday’s amusement was billed arsenic some a solemnisation of Grohl’s 57th day — astatine 1 constituent 2 stagehands wheeled retired an tremendous barroom — and a fundraiser for a mates of organizations warring homelessness successful the band’s hometown of Los Angeles.

But astir 4 years aft the shocking decease of drummer Taylor Hawkins, the performance was besides a showcase of Foo Fighters’ indispensable durability: the group’s dogged yet cheerful determination to support going nary substance what.

Wednesday’s amusement was a fundraiser for 2 organizations warring homelessness successful L.A.

(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)

Last year, the set fired Hawkins’ replacement, Josh Freese, without overmuch explanation, past replaced him with Ilan Rubin of Nine Inch Nails. (In a precise KROQ twist, Freese went connected to instrumentality Rubin’s spot successful Nine Inch Nails.)

The play with the drummers followed Grohl’s revelation successful precocious 2024 that he’d fathered a kid extracurricular his matrimony — a threatening reputational stroke to a feline agelong regarded arsenic a benignant of benevolent stone ’n’ rotation uncle.

And conscionable past week, the Foos announced that guitarist Pat Smear would miss the band’s upcoming gigs aft accidentally “smashing the s— retired of his near foot.” Jason Falkner, a erstwhile subordinate of the large ’90s psych-pop set Jellyfish who’s played for years with Beck, filled successful for Smear astatine the Forum, wherever Rubin’s footwear drum bore a representation of Smear’s face.

Despite each that, Foo Fighters came connected similar they ever have: heavy, crunching, speedy, tuneful.

“You know, I haven’t gone to the bath erstwhile this full show,” Grohl said arsenic helium approached the two-hour mark.

After coming up done the punk country successful Washington, D.C., Grohl became a prima arsenic the drummer of Nirvana; helium started Foo Fighters successful 1994 arsenic a mode of grappling with the decease that twelvemonth of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Over the decades the band’s euphony has moved steadily toward the benignant of classical stone that punks erstwhile professed to hatred — deliberation of Led Zeppelin, deliberation of Aerosmith, spell up and deliberation of Boston — portion Grohl has taken up the relation of jocular frontman with a gusto approaching that of David Lee Roth.

Here the Foos performed connected a rotating signifier that the vocalist happily said made him consciousness similar “I’m successful the showroom astatine the Mercedes dealership successful Van Nuys.” (He besides pointed retired that the setup ensured that everyone would yet “get a bully look astatine my ass.”)

Key to the band’s longevity, of course, is simply a heavy store of hits that present themselves number arsenic staples of immoderate classical stone playlist. “Learn to Fly” and “Times Like These” were crisply melodic; “My Hero,” which Grohl dedicated to Smear and his breached foot, was someway bludgeoning and propulsive. “Monkey Wrench” sounded similar an atomic-powered mentation of “Johnny B. Goode.” And “Best of You” had a soulful tug that reminded you that Prince famously covered the opus successful the rainfall astatine the Super Bowl successful 2007.

The Wednesday amusement besides celebrated Dave Grohl’s 57th birthday.

(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)

Around the halfway mark, Grohl threw a spot of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” into the Foos’ “No Son of Mine” — “That was for Lemmy,” helium said of the precocious Motörhead frontman — past had his bandmates instrumentality a interruption arsenic helium sang a solo rendition of “Under You,” astir his conflict to judge Hawkins’ passing.

The past clip Foo Fighters played the Forum, helium noted, was successful 2022 astatine an all-star tribute to the drummer. After “Under You,” the remainder of the radical returned for a long, searching instrumentality connected “Aurora,” which Grohl has said was the archetypal opus helium and Hawkins wrote together.

“Sorry we’re getting truthful emotional,” helium said, though fewer successful the intergenerational assemblage seemed to mind. (Less enthusiastically received was the band’s aimless jamming successful “Run.”)

Foo Fighters closed, arsenic they typically do, with “Everlong,” the sturdy mid-’90s alt-rock anthem that ne'er seems to spell retired of manner adjacent — oregon particularly — among kids who hadn’t been calved erstwhile it came out.

“Hello,” Grohl sang coolly implicit a furniture of thrumming electrical guitars, “I’ve waited present for you.”