Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.While the footballers of England and Denmark were trotting tediously around Frankfurt’s Waldstadion, there was at least one European venue — the London Stadium — where everyone was having the time of their lives. Part of football’s appeal is of course its capriciousness, the matched possibilities of a dazzling spectacular or a damp squib. Give me the reliable air-punching bedlam of a Foo Fighters concert every time.For almost 30 years, it has been pretty clear what band leader Dave Grohl is going to do when he stands up in front of a large crowd. Never mind the fame-hating misery of his formative success with Nirvana. Now he will behave convincingly like the person who is having the best time of all among 80,000 others. He will scream endlessly — not so much the controlled fury of a heavy-metal singer, more like a schoolboy on his first rollercoaster. He will refer to everybody, all evening, as “motherfuckers”, and somehow make it sound affectionate. And he will do all this for three hours a night.He is now 55, and as time has gone on it must have become harder to maintain this state of unbridled joy, at least offstage. Last summer the 11th Foo Fighters album, But Here We Are, was partly informed by the deaths of their drummer, Taylor Hawkins, and Grohl’s mother Virginia, both in 2022. Its songs have their joyful moments, but there’s an emotional heaviness throughout as well, especially evident on the 10-minute epic “The Teacher” — an encore here.At their shows, Hawkins was probably the only person who looked as though he was having more fun than the frontman. His oversized absence was treated sensitively here. Grohl performed the song “Under You”, which is about that loss, solo on acoustic guitar. (When the band was introduced, the new man at the kit, Josh Freese, received the longest welcoming applause of all.) Thousands of phone torches came out for the 1999 ballad “Aurora”, dedicated to the members of the Hawkins family in the audience. At the close, the late drummer’s teenage son Oliver Shane Hawkins was brought on to drum on “I’ll Stick Around”.Grohl was on typically tireless form. “Do you want one more? Do you want a lot more than one more?” he asked. He was in no hurry to leave the stage, or indeed to finish a song. Old favourites such as “The Pretender” and “Breakout” were given false endings, adding more euphoria to the repeated returns to those raucous choruses.Enhancing the happy family feel, 18-year-old Violet Grohl arrived to sing the new song “Show Me How” as a calming duet. Otherwise, aside from the acoustic interlude, there was generous space for blistering rockers such as “All My Life” and “Walk”.Perhaps the predictability was the point. Grohl is a life-long believer in the power of pure, unadorned rock and roll. That’s what has held his band together over the decades. After so long in their company, it’s easy to be convinced that nothing else matters.★★★★☆foofighters.com
