Following some mammoth traffic jams and car park nightmares we eventually make our way into the National Bowl stacked to the rafters with 65’000 punters.

 

Kicking proceedings off this evening is possibly the hottest act on the British music scene - Royal Blood. With only one album under their belts, it will be interesting to see how they fill a 45minute slot, and it’s mostly a very well crafted and strong performance. Really getting the crowd going with hits such as Come On Over, You Can Be So Cruel and Little Monster, it’s a real shame that the sun is setting right behind the stage, blinding half the audience making it quite difficult to see anything. But this didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s enjoyment of the band, and all but the final 10mins of murdering the instrumentation of Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, noise and reverb proved why they’re so popular right now.

 

Quickly the crowd disperses, and Iggy Pop comes on stage to a half-full Bowl. Bearing a striking resemblance to an aged leather boot with trousers on he does very little to keep the crowd entertained. Meandering around the stage attempting to sing and I’m certain not a single person in the audience understood what he was saying between songs. Yes, he does have huge songs like The Passenger and Lust For Life, but let’s be honest…they sound terrible and the crowd are bored. This set was an hour long - an extremely long hour indeed. 

 

Last but not least, the reason we’re all here after the cancellation of the Wembley and Glastonbury shows - the Foo Fighters take to the stage. Opening with the double-hitter of All My Life and Times Life These you get the feeling right away that this show is going to be great. Dave Grohl is perched upon his rather awesome throne covered in guitars and lights, what’s even more impressive is that it moves around the stage. The new album Sonic Highways gets a strong showing in the set with Something From Nothing, Outside and Congregation all getting played. It takes no time at all to get accustomed to the fact that Grohl isn’t bolting around the stage on foot, the frontman is packed full of energy on the throne and even takes the time to poke fun at his broken leg and all the money the band will make from t-shirt sales featuring an x-ray of the break.

 

The performance is excellent, and the band as always look like they’re having the time of their lives All the hits are in the setlist featuring Monkey Wrench, The Pretender and Breakout. Although we weren’t treated to a cover of “Under Pressure” featuring Roger Taylor and John Paul Jones - we get My Hero, Hey! Johnny Park and Up In Arms which in my opinion is much better and exactly what we came to see. Closing the set with Best of You and Everlong you couldn’t have asked for a better show, Foo Fighters have definitely still got it….broken leg or not!