Astonishingly, 20 years after Nevermind, Nirvana's backroom boy is leader of one of the world's biggest hard rock bands. This weekend, Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters played to 130,000 people at Milton Keynes, but their set was as much a confirmation of their current standing as a celebration of their 17-year history, featuring numerous songs from new album Wasting Light, which went to No 1 across most of the world.
It's clear Grohl has been galvanised by the album's success: the energy of his performance is infectious, and during the opening song, Bridge Burning, he is already charging across the stage, grinning from ear to ear. No matter if the metal boogie of Rope is old-fashioned: it connects with the audience, as does Grohl's persona, blue-collar good blokeishness emanating from every pore.
But at the same time, Foo Fighters couldn't be less dangerous, and nor do they have, despite their enormity, any cultural traction. It's telling that Grohl brings onstage, for Dear Rosemary, Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü (one of several guests tonight – Seasick Steve and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones make cameos during the first encore), a band who enjoyed a fraction of Foos' sales, but will always be more significant. As Grohl tells the crowd: "We wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for Bob."
He says the same thing a few songs later when he introduces Butch Vig, producer of Nevermind and Wasting Light. Still, Vig's appearance makes a powerful point: Grohl's two career peaks may be two decades apart, and the first of them may have been fronted by a man whose iconic status he can never hope to match, but for sheer grizzled consistency, he outstrips Kurt Cobain. When Grohl roars on Walk, "I never wanna die!", an obvious counterpoint to Nirvana's I Hate Myself and Want to Die, he seems to finally step out from his late bandmate's shadow, and you wonder how many of the younger people here tonight would think, "Kurt who?"
