The generational rockers ripped through an epic setlist that would make any fan happy
There are Foo Fighters concerts, and then there are Foo Fighters concerts in Washington, D.C. For Dave Grohl, returning to the region where he grew up and first became immersed in the punk-rock community has always carried additional significance, and on August 17 that connection was magnified to stadium proportions. Foo Fighters took over Nationals Park for a sold-out stop on their Take Cover Tour, delivering a sprawling three-hour performance that celebrated virtually every era of the band’s career. With Mannequin Pussy and Queens of the Stone Age providing an unusually formidable pair of opening acts, the concert felt less like a traditional stadium bill and more like a miniature rock festival, culminating with Grohl and company proving once again why they remain one of the defining live rock bands of their generation.
The afternoon began under punishing summer conditions, but Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy wasted little time attacking the enormous stage. Frontwoman Marisa Dabice immediately acknowledged the heat before the band tore through a compact 30-minute set that included “Softly,” “Drunk II,” “Romantic,” “Sometimes,” “I Got Heaven,” “Control,” “Of Her,” “OK? OK! OK? OK!” and “Loud Bark.” Mannequin Pussy’s combination of abrasive punk energy, melody and emotional volatility translated remarkably well to a baseball stadium, even if the band’s music seems naturally designed for the sweaty confines of a packed club. Dabice commanded the stage with ferocity, giving early arrivals something considerably more substantial than a typical opening-act warm-up.
Queens of the Stone Age followed, and their presence alone demonstrated just how stacked the tour was. A band capable of headlining festivals and large venues in its own right, Queens compressed decades of sinister, swaggering desert rock into an hour-long, 12-song performance. Josh Homme and company opened with “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire” and moved through “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret,” “In My Head,” “My God Is the Sun,” “Time & Place,” “I Sat by the Ocean,” “Make It Wit Chu” and “Little Sister.” The final stretch was devastating: “A Song for the Deaf,” “Go With the Flow,” “No One Knows” and “A Song for the Dead,” essentially giving Nationals Park four songs worthy of closing a Queens headlining show. Homme’s cool, controlled presence provided an effective contrast to the unrestrained energy that Grohl would unleash shortly afterward.
By the time darkness began settling over Washington, anticipation had transformed into something closer to a roar. Fog poured across the massive stage as Foo Fighters emerged at approximately 8 p.m., with enormous video screens ensuring that even fans in the distant reaches of Nationals Park could see the action. There was no elaborate theatrical introduction needed. Once Grohl appeared with a guitar strapped across his body, the stadium erupted, and the band immediately launched into “All My Life.” Within moments, tens of thousands of people were screaming its familiar refrain back at him. It was the beginning of a marathon: Foo Fighters would remain onstage until approximately 11:05 p.m., making the performance more than three hours long.
From there, the opening run of songs was almost absurdly strong. “The Pretender” came second, followed by “Times Like These,” “Rope,” “Stacked Actors,” “My Hero” and “Learn to Fly.” Most rock bands would build an entire encore around songs of that magnitude; Foo Fighters burned through them during the opening portion of the night. That speaks to just how deep the band’s catalog has become after more than three decades. There was seemingly no concern about saving recognizable songs for later because there were always more waiting. “These Days,” “Walk,” “This Is a Call” and “No Son of Mine” followed, meaning that before the concert had even reached its quieter midpoint, Foo Fighters had already delivered a formidable greatest-hits set.
More impressive than the song selection was how great the band sounded. Stadium concerts can easily turn powerful guitar music into an indistinct wall of noise, but Foo Fighters’ enormous sound retained its punch. Grohl’s rhythm guitar remained the center of the attack, while Chris Shiflett supplied sharper leads and Pat Smear brought the loose punk-rock energy that has been part of the band’s personality for decades. Nate Mendel’s bass provided the low-end weight, and Rami Jaffee’s keyboards added texture without softening the guitars. The songs sounded huge without becoming sterile. This was still unmistakably a rock band playing live, with songs allowed to stretch, breathe and occasionally become gloriously unruly.
At the center of everything was Grohl. Now decades removed from the young drummer who emerged from the Washington-area punk scene before joining Nirvana, he remains one of rock’s most physically committed frontmen. Even in the oppressive August heat, Grohl raced around the stage, headbanged relentlessly and repeatedly pushed his already raspy voice toward its breaking point. At various moments he poured water over himself from cups positioned around the stage, doing whatever was necessary to survive the humid night. Rather than weakening the show, the conditions almost seemed to add another layer of defiance to it. Grohl looked exhausted because he was working, and the audience could see exactly how much effort was being poured into every song.
That relationship between Grohl and the crowd became especially obvious during “My Hero.” As the chorus arrived, he backed away and allowed the stadium to take over, turning one of Foo Fighters’ most recognizable songs into an enormous communal singalong. Moments like that have become central to the band’s concerts. Grohl is technically the frontman, but he often behaves more like the conductor of a gigantic rock-and-roll choir, demanding that audiences participate rather than simply observe. At Nationals Park, thousands of voices repeatedly became part of the performance.
The D.C. setting made the evening particularly personal. Grohl dedicated “These Days” to family and friends in attendance who had known him when he was young, while “This Is a Call,” one of the first songs released under the Foo Fighters name in 1995, was dedicated to Barrett Jones, who produced Grohl’s earliest Foo Fighters recordings. “No Son of Mine” became a salute to the late Lemmy Kilmister and incorporated a snippet of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades.” These weren’t merely scripted tour moments. In Washington, they helped connect the stadium-sized Foo Fighters of 2026 to Grohl’s beginnings as a teenager discovering punk music in the D.C. area.
After more than an hour of relentless volume, the band moved down the long runway to a smaller B-stage positioned deeper in the field. It was a smart piece of pacing. Suddenly a show designed for tens of thousands of people became comparatively intimate. Foo Fighters opened the section with “Wheels” before Grohl reached much further into his past for “Marigold,” originally recorded under his Late! moniker and later released by Nirvana. “Big Me,” from the 1995 Foo Fighters debut, provided another reminder of just how far the band has traveled since Grohl essentially created that first record by himself. The other musicians eventually departed, leaving Grohl alone for an acoustic “Under You,” one of the most emotionally direct songs from 2023’s But Here We Are.
The B-stage segment also highlighted one of the greatest strengths of the night’s enormous setlist: it wasn’t merely a parade of singles. Foo Fighters were willing to devote precious stadium-show time to deep cuts, acoustic rearrangements and songs that carried personal significance. “Marigold” in particular was the kind of selection aimed squarely at longtime fans. In an era when stadium concerts are frequently designed down to the second, the willingness to wander through the catalog made the show feel unusually generous.
Once Foo Fighters returned to the main stage, however, the amplifiers came roaring back. “La Dee Da” and “Run” restored the concert’s full electric force before the traditional band introductions evolved into one of the most entertaining portions of the evening. Instead of simply allowing each musician a brief solo, Grohl used the segment to acknowledge their musical histories. Pieces of No Use for a Name’s “Invincible,” Sunny Day Real Estate’s “Seven,” the Wallflowers’ “One Headlight” and the Germs’ “Manimal” represented the backgrounds of Shiflett, Mendel, Jaffee and Smear. It was a clever reminder that Foo Fighters aren’t merely Dave Grohl plus a backing group; the stage was occupied by musicians whose collective histories stretch across punk, alternative rock, emo and mainstream rock.
Then came perhaps the most fascinating switch of the night. Grohl moved behind the drums while Ilan Rubin picked up a guitar for a portion of “Tap Dancing in a Minefield.” For anyone still unfamiliar with Rubin’s remarkable versatility, the moment made the point quickly. The newest Foo Fighters drummer is far more than a percussionist, and watching him switch instruments with Grohl added a playful unpredictability to a show that could easily have relied entirely on its established formula.
Rubin’s performance throughout the evening inevitably attracted attention because sitting behind the Foo Fighters drum kit carries an extraordinary amount of history. His playing was thunderous and precise, but importantly, it didn’t feel like an attempt to impersonate anyone who had occupied the position before him. He gave “Monkey Wrench,” “Breakout” and “The Sky Is a Neighborhood” the physical force they required while fitting comfortably inside a band built around explosive dynamics. By this point in the night, the Foo Fighters machine was operating at full power, and Rubin sounded increasingly natural within it.
“Monkey Wrench” remains one of the greatest weapons in the band’s live arsenal. Its frantic pace and famous breathless bridge transformed Nationals Park into another enormous singalong before “Breakout” maintained the momentum. “The Sky Is a Neighborhood” brought a different kind of stadium-sized grandeur, demonstrating how Foo Fighters have expanded their sonic vocabulary over the years without abandoning the enormous guitars that made them famous. The performance moved easily between punk velocity, melodic alternative rock and full-scale arena bombast.
Then the mood changed.
“Aurora” has taken on an entirely different meaning since the death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022. Long considered one of Hawkins’ favorite Foo Fighters songs to perform, it has become the band’s regular tribute to their fallen drummer. Grohl dedicated it to Hawkins at Nationals Park, and the moment carried an emotional weight unlike anything else in the show. Rather than trying to recreate what once existed, the performance acknowledged the person who was missing. For all the celebration surrounding it, “Aurora” provided a reminder that the current Foo Fighters exist only after enduring an unimaginable loss.
The significance of that moment cannot be overstated. Hawkins wasn’t simply Foo Fighters’ drummer for a quarter-century; he was one of the band’s most recognizable personalities and Grohl’s closest musical partners. His death could understandably have ended the group. Instead, Foo Fighters eventually chose to continue, carrying his memory openly with them. Hearing “Aurora” inside a packed Nationals Park illustrated the complicated emotional balance the band has learned to navigate: grief remains part of the story, but so does celebration.
After “Aurora,” “Best of You” provided the massive conclusion the main set demanded. The song’s extended audience participation has long been one of Foo Fighters’ signature concert moments, and in a stadium it becomes almost overwhelming. Grohl could stop singing entirely and the song would continue through the voices surrounding him. By then the band had been performing for hours, yet the crowd still seemed determined to give back every ounce of energy coming from the stage.
The encore began with “The Teacher,” the sprawling But Here We Are track inspired by the death of Grohl’s mother, Virginia. At Nationals Park he dedicated the song to her and to teachers in general, making another deeply personal composition feel especially appropriate in his hometown region. It was an unconventional choice for the penultimate song of a gigantic stadium concert — long, emotionally heavy and far removed from a conventional hit — but that was precisely why it worked. Foo Fighters weren’t interested only in nostalgia. Their more recent grief, growth and songwriting still occupied an important place alongside the classics.
There was only one possible way to end.
As soon as the opening guitar figure of “Everlong” rang through Nationals Park, the reaction was deafening. After more than three hours of music, the stadium somehow found another reserve of energy. Grohl threw himself into the song as if it were the first of the night rather than the last, and when the final stretch arrived, fireworks exploded overhead. Fans alternated between watching the stage and looking toward the sky as the song that has become Foo Fighters’ defining anthem brought the evening to a spectacular conclusion. The band had started at 8 p.m. and finished at approximately 11:05 — a three-hour-and-five-minute performance.
The scale of the set was staggering. Across approximately 25 complete songs plus the sprawling band-introduction medley, Foo Fighters reached back to their 1995 debut with “This Is a Call” and “Big Me,” revisited The Colour and the Shape with “Monkey Wrench,” “My Hero” and “Everlong,” pulled four songs from There Is Nothing Left to Lose, and touched One by One, In Your Honor, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Wasting Light, Concrete and Gold, Medicine at Midnight and But Here We Are. Even after three hours, significant songs were left untouched. That may have been the greatest demonstration of how deep the Foo Fighters catalog has become: they could play an exhausting stadium show packed with hits and still leave fans naming songs they wished had made the cut.
The production was appropriately enormous without becoming the attraction itself. Giant video screens, lighting, fog, the runway and B-stage, and the climactic fireworks all enhanced the spectacle, but the evening never depended upon technological tricks. At its core, the show remained remarkably old-fashioned: loud guitars, huge drums, a frontman determined to empty the tank and an audience encouraged to scream until it had nothing left. Even inside a Major League Baseball stadium, Foo Fighters somehow maintained the spirit of a band trying to overwhelm a sweaty club.
That may be the most remarkable aspect of Foo Fighters in 2026. The band’s circumstances have changed dramatically, but its fundamental purpose hasn’t. Grohl still treats rock music as a communal experience. He still appears thrilled by the sight of thousands of people losing themselves in “My Hero.” Pat Smear still brings an unmistakable punk-rock looseness to the stage. Shiflett remains an underrated guitar weapon, Mendel anchors everything from below, and Jaffee expands the sonic palette around them. Now Rubin is adding another chapter to that chemistry.
His arrival followed another difficult transition. Josh Freese had stepped into an almost impossible position following Hawkins’ death, helping Foo Fighters return to touring before his departure from the group in 2025. Rubin subsequently became the band’s drummer, creating yet another major personnel change during an already emotionally complicated era. No drummer could or should be expected to replace Taylor Hawkins in the larger sense of what Hawkins meant to Foo Fighters, and Nationals Park didn’t suggest the band was trying to do that. Instead, Rubin appeared to be carving out his own place within the group.
That distinction matters. Hawkins remains part of Foo Fighters every night that “Aurora” is dedicated to him, just as his personality and musicianship remain woven into decades of the band’s recordings and history. Continuing doesn’t erase that loss. If anything, the current version of Foo Fighters seems increasingly comfortable acknowledging the past while refusing to become trapped by it.
And that is ultimately what made the August 17 show at Nationals Park feel so significant. Foo Fighters have endured the kind of tragedy that could have permanently ended a band. They then endured another transition when Freese departed and Rubin arrived. Yet here they were, more than 30 years after Grohl recorded the first Foo Fighters album largely by himself, filling a baseball stadium in the city that helped shape him, surrounded by a lineup featuring Queens of the Stone Age as an opening act, playing for more than three hours and finishing “Everlong” beneath a sky full of fireworks.
There is no replacing Taylor Hawkins, nor should there be. His absence will forever be part of the Foo Fighters story. But the band has found a way to keep moving without pretending otherwise. Rubin’s arrival represents another evolution rather than an attempt to recreate the past, and at Nationals Park the new configuration sounded powerful, confident and remarkably alive. After tragedy, uncertainty and multiple lineup changes, Foo Fighters haven’t simply survived. They have powered through it all and somehow emerged playing some of the biggest shows of their lives. Three decades into their existence, Foo Fighters seem every bit as big as they have ever been — and on this night in Washington, D.C., they sounded like it too.
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