Sound City Players, Forum - review

Watching Dave Grohl's rotating collective of his favourite musicians was a mixed experience
Dave Grohl and his Sound City Players
Getty Images
20 February 2013

One of the many perks of being an internationally successful pop star is the power to turn nebulous self-indulgences into reality. Hence Sound City Players, the rotating collective marshalled by Dave Grohl, once of Nirvana and now of stadium fillers Foo Fighters.

Named after Sound City, the legendary Los Angeles studio where Nirvana recorded the history-making Nervermind (and the subject of a Grohl-directed documentary), Sound City Players is Grohl’s present to himself. He was the musical pivot and ever-cheery MC.

The Foo Fighters formed the house band, but guests from Grohl’s favourite metal, punk and powerpop bands played a fistful of their songs each.

Unsurprisingly the results were mixed: they sucked the spirit out of metal; they wholly misunderstood punk but they were born powerpoppers.

When Grohl anointed Alain Johannes, late of Queens Of The Stone Age and a man who wouldn’t recognise the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci if it moved in upstairs, as “a fucking genius”, the metal section was doomed to dullness. It was hard not to feel short-changed that American audiences had been presented with Stevie Nicks, while London was saddled with unprepossessing Masters Of Reality singer Chris Goss.

The fireball that was Lee Ving of Los Angeles punks Fear had all the charisma in the world but none of the songs.

The last hour, though, was more engaging. Australian singer Rick Springfield, a 63-year-old teenager, hurtled through some of his hits including the mighty Jessie’s Girl but the best came last when on the eve of what would have been Kurt Cobain’s 46th birthday, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic emerged to offer the closest that band can come to a reunion. No Nirvana songs were aired but Novoselic was joined by Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen. Grohl retreated to the drums, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins sang and suddenly Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me and Surrender made heady sense of a confusing evening.

A muted audience reaction meant no ensemble encore, but for all the concept’s strangeness and weakness one man clearly had the time of his life. Watching him have it was a more nuanced experience entirely.

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