with Supergrass, Year Long Disaster
Conseco Fieldhouse
July 22

I was standing outside of local recording studio The Pop Machine, smoking a cigarette while the members of Supergrass were engrossed in an ant carrying a giant piece of leaf. They were marveling at the ant, wondering what it would be like to be a human with ant strength. And they were really into it. In turn, I was marveling at how a band, on the road, opening for The Foo Fighters, could spend so much mental energy on such a small mystery of the universe.

Meanwhile, Gaz Coombes, the singer and undisputed leader of the outfit, had finished tweaking the set-up for the band’s live in-studio performance for Dodge’s My Old Kentucky Blog Sirius show and summoned the band inside.

Kicking off with a supercharged rendition of “Diamond Hoo Ha,” the band was on it and sounded great. Coombes’ vocals were perfection, coming off as a young David Bowie on cough syrup. The band did a few more songs from the new record effortlessly and, after a perfunctory interview with Dodge, headed to Conseco.

It was a good afternoon. Dodge and Marc and Eric Johnson (from The Pop Machine) have a good thing going, using the power of Sirius to give rockers a chance to experience a cool side of Indy and maybe make the Circle City a required stop on future tours.

At Conseco, I was glad that I got to hear Supergrass pull off a great performance earlier, because the Fieldhouse sucked all the coherent sound from opener Year Long Disaster and Supergrass.

As for the Foo Fighters show: Wow. Seriously. Wow. Dave Grohl may be the funniest, most entertaining A-List rock performer walking the face right now. His banter was sarcastic, often egotistical and always humorous. And with his core band, he proceeded to rock Conseco royally.

“Stacked Actors” became a showcase that included a Tyler Hawkins drum solo. Their cover of The Who’s “Young Man Blues” proved them to be a hard-as-nails hard rock outfit in their prime, while the crowd’s enthusiasm for songs off their new album showed them to be still relevant to the kids of today.

The hands-down best part of the spectacle was a Bon Jovi-ish arena rock move where the entire band moved to a second stage and did an “acoustic” set that included a version of “My Hero” that nearly brought the house down. It was here that Grohl gave the best band intro ever, climaxing by cajoling his percussionist into a triangle solo.

It sure is nice to know that there is one band out there that still knows what it takes to put on a flawless rock show in a big-ass room.