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Foo Fighters

 (The Forum; 14,000 seats; $43)

By JEFF MILLER

Presented by Goldenvoice and KROQ.
 
Band: Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Taylor Hawkins. Also appearing: Against Me!, Serj Tankian. Opened, reviewed March 5, 2008; closed March 6.
 

A little over a decade ago, Dave Grohl -- then best known as the drummer for Nirvana -- played a couple of songs with Tom Petty on "Saturday Night Live." Nothing more than a trifle in rock history, the set is now beginning to seem oddly prescient: Thanks to his workmanlike, everyman demeanor, his unflagging consistency, and his near-criminal critical underappreciation, Grohl, as the frontman for the Foo Fighters, is well on his way to becoming the Tom Petty of alternative rock. His winning streak has continued, not only with the recent Grammy victory for his band's "Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace," but with a superlative U.S. tour closer in his "adopted" hometown of Los Angeles.

Grohl is nothing if not dependable. In a two-hour set, he roared through hits both old ("This Is a Call") and new (the almost too-tuneful "Long Road to Ruin") with the excited determination of a middle-schooler, running the width of the stage and the length of the arena via a wide catwalk during almost every number. His sometimes-expanded band helps hold down the fort: auxiliary guitarist Pat Smear, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, strings player Jessy Green, and percussionist Drew Hester add depth to the songs Grohl allows them to play on, especially in a mid-set, mid-arena acoustic segment that recalled a similarly stripped-down tour from a few years ago.

But it's his main band members who are the all-stars. Where Grohl was once the only Foo Fighter worth noting, now he lets drummer Taylor Hawkins take a prolonged solo during "Stacked Actors," and wages a guitar battle against Chris Shiflett mid-set.

When it came time to introduce surprise guest Stewart Copeland, Grohl withdrew even further, letting Hawkins take lead vocals on the Police's "Next to You," despite Hawkins' obvious tunelessness, still charming beneath a I-can't-believe-this-is-happening surfer/stoner smile.

Somehow, Grohl makes this selflessness simultaneously seem like stardom, a feat not easily accomplished without an air of pretension. But Grohl doesn't even take himself seriously: pre-encore, the stadium cameras found him backstage with a set list, humorously looking at it and trying to feel out the audience's encore endurance. Staged? Most certainly. But as hammy as it was, it never felt ham-fisted.

Openers Against Me! And Serj Tankian both tried to woo the audience with aggressiveness, but only one succeeded. Against Me!'s smartly riotous punk rock reigned supreme over Tankian's ridiculously arranged roars.