Foo Fighters vow to mix up their setlist on upcoming tour

The rock giants, who play a trio of sold out stadium shows in Manchester and London this June, have just kicked off the latest leg of the Concrete And Gold tour in North America and Shiflett says Dave Grohl is purposefully mixing things up to keep his Foo Fighters band mates on the ball.

While a substantial part of the setlist – around two hours – is roughly established, the guitarist says that things get unpredictable and more fluid in the final third.

“Things change on a dime,” Shiflett told Rolling Stone. “When we get into that final third, Dave will start cutting, adding and rearranging songs, or he'll do stuff in a different order.

“You have to stay in the moment the whole time. You don't want to be up there thinking about the room service. It keeps you on your toes.”

Singling out ‘The Sky Is a Neighbourhood’ as case in point, Shiflett continued: “It's evolved a little bit over the months of playing it live. Everything is a little looser and a little louder.

“It's gotten a little rougher around the edges, some of the parts have stretched out, the pauses are longer. We added an intro thing to it. It's just changed.

“Dave tends to like to keep the show moving, but we'll play some different songs to gauge how people react.

“We threw in Make It Right recently, which we haven't been playing much. We have a little jam room backstage where we can warm up and run through anything new once or twice just to get the dust off it a little bit. We play four or five new songs a night.”

Shiflett added: "It's a long jaunt to play two-and-a-half or three hours every night. We've been on the road for the last eight months or so and I feel like we're in good form. We're hitting our stride, but we're not burnt out yet. People should expect to get their money's worth."

Foo Fighters, of course, often incorporate cover versions into their setlists and last August hit the headlines when they melded Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ with Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ with Rick himself on vocals at Japan’s ‘Summer Sonic Festival’.

AC/DC’s ‘Let There Be Rock’, Alice Cooper’s ‘Under My Wheels’, Van Halen’s ‘Jump’, Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’ and KISS’s ‘Detroit Rock City’ are just a handful of covers that have made their setlist in recent months.

Foo Fighters play the following sold-out summer shows:

JUNE 2018
Manchester Etihad Stadium – Tue 19th
London Stadium – Fri 22nd
London Stadium – Sat 23rd