With a number of excellent rock tours and festivals available this summer, there was no shortage of great options for fans to check out, but one tour packed in more high-quality music and value than any other, The Foo Fighters' Take Cover Tour, a massive stadium trek with longtime friends and collaborators Queens of the Stone Age. The tour's Michigan stop rocked a huge crowd at Ford Field, home of The Detroit Lions, and other stops on the tour took place at similarly sized venues across the country.
After an engaging, 30-minute opening set from the angry young women in Mannequin Pussy, Queens of the Stone Age took the stage and ripped through 60 minutes of up-tempo, post-grunge stoner rock. While this tour served as a warm-up for the release of the band's newest LP, Perfecth, they didn't include any new material. Also on that note, all the songs were either fast or mid-tempo rockers; no ballads were played. The show itself varied significantly from the band's previous Detroit performance, which was a scaled-down, intimate and often acoustic affair on The Catacombs Tour last fall. Everyone in the band did an excellent job supporting frontman Josh Homme on hits like "Little Sister," "My God Is the Sun," "Go with the Flow," and "No One Knows." Longtime and hardcore fans also appreciated deep cuts like "Hangin' Tree," "Mexicola," and "I Appear Missing," giving QOTSA an enthusiastic reception even from the cheap seats where the crowd could still hear and feel the music, even if they couldn't really see the band members on stage. It's clear the band are a bit less comfortable playing in such large venues, but their music translated well even to a bigger crowd like the one at Ford Field. This show also featured Homme's much publicized ranting about being denied a place to smoke anywhere inside or apparently even outside on the grounds of the venue, which he connected to the already high prices of tickets, drinks, and parking to complain that both the performers and the audience deserve to have a good time after investing so much time, money, and energy into such an evening, to which the crowd primarily seemed to agree.
As for the headliners, Foo Fighters' seized the opportunity to play as much as they wanted and anything they wanted, and it's clear their goal was to please the crowd, leaning heavily on their greatest hits with enough deep cuts and jams to keep even longtime fans engaged. "All My Life," "The Pretender," "Learn to Fly," "My Hero," "Monkeywrench," and "Best of You" were all strategically placed throughout the set and balanced with moderate hits like "Breakout," "Rope," "Walk," "The Sky Is a Neighborhood" and "Run" along with a handful of other deep cuts and extended jams on some tracks. Time was even devoted to three cuts from the band's 1995 debut album, "This Is a Call," "Big Me," and "Exhausted," tipping their collective hat to the fans who have been with them through their entire history as a band.
About a third of the way into their show, Foo Fighters moved forward to a b-stage about halfway into the crowd on the floor to run through four quieter numbers in a tighter configuration, including the newly resurrected "Wheels," a track from their previous album, "Under You," and a take on Nirvana's Grohl-penned B-side, "Marigold," originally featured on his first ever demo tape, recorded under the name Late! Shortly after returning to the main stage, the band ran through a lengthy medley of songs as part of introducing the individual members, this time spotlighting a track from one of each player's previous bands, such as No Use for a Name, Sunny Day Real Estate, Germs, Wallflowers, and The New Regime, which featured new drummer Ilan Rubin on guitar and vocals while Grohl manned the drumkit who concluded the medley with a drum fill from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." A moment of remembrance for late drummer Taylor Hawkins was also included with a performance of "Aurora," Hawkins' favorite Foo Fighters song, which has been performed at nearly every show they've played since his death.
The full Foo show ran three hours with only one short encore break and no intermission which allowed time for tons of music, Grohl's usual interactions with the audience, and plenty of fun and laughter throughout. Only two new songs from the band's latest album, "Caught in the Echo" and "Of All People," were casually slipped in around the two-and-a-half-hour mark, almost as an afterthought, and no specific attention was given to them among the other songs from the past 31 years. Closing things down with a traditional singalong on "Everlong," their biggest and most notable hit, the thoroughly sweaty and genuinely grateful band took their final bows to a long-lasting standing ovation.
In retrospect, Foo Fighters may have played three hours to justify the higher ticket prices, or maybe they planned to play that long anyway, so they charged fans accordingly. From a fan's perspective, and piggybacking on Homme's comments earlier in the night, it's sort of an obligation to give the people a lot for their money if they are going to charge that much to get in. Whether it was an appropriately long and hit-filled night based on the cost of entry, or whether the marathon of songs even surpassed the value of the ticket, members of the audience appeared to be well-rocked and even winded from the experience by the end of the night. Compared to many other tours I was lucky enough to catch this summer and fall, The Take Cover Tour stands out as the most thoroughly satisfying and all-around best concert of the year!
Mannequin Pussy (Detroit, 8/6/26):
Material Girls
Sometimes
I Don't Know You
Romantic
I Got Heaven
Of Her
Aching
Ok? Ok! Ok? Ok!
Loud Bark
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Queens of the Stone Age (Detroit 8/6/26):
(Starland Vocal Band-"Afternoon Delight" (intro tape)
-----------------
Little Sister
Smooth Sailing
Paper Machete
Hangin' Tree
My God Is the Sun
I Appear Missing
Make It wit Chu/Miss You (Rolling Stones)
Mexicola
Go with the Flow
No One Knows
A Song for the Dead
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Foo Fighters (Detroit 8/6/26):
All My Life
The Pretender
Times Like These
Rope
Stacked Actors
My Hero
Learn to Fly
These Days
Walk
This Is a Call
No Son of Mine/Ace of Spades (Motorhead)
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Wheels
Marigold (Nirvana)
Big Me
Under You
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La Dee Da
Run
Band intro jams medley: Invincible (No Use for a Name)/Seven (Sunny Day Real Estate)/One Headlight (Wallflowers)/Manimal (Germs)/Happy Birthday (Hill/Hill)/Dancing in a Minefield (The New Regime)/Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) (tag)
Monkey Wrench
Breakout
The Sky Is a Neighborhood
Aurora
Caught in the Echo
Of All People
Best of You
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Exhausted
Everlong
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