A scene from this year‘s Ansan M Valley Rock Festival, held from July 24 - 26 at the Daebu Sea Breeze Theme Park in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. (CJ E&M)
Despite hordes of unrelenting mosquitoes descending on a crowd sweating bullets in the steaming humidity and losing shoes traipsing through the damp mud, this year’s Ansan M Rock Festival concluded its festivities on a high note, inviting American rock gods, the Foo Fighters.
With more than two decades as rock and roll music icons, the Foo Fighters -- led by the one and only Dave Grohl -- took to the stage Sunday night in true head-banging fashion, marking the band’s first-ever concert performance in Korea during the three-day rock fest, which was held from July 24-26 in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province.
The former Nirvana drummer turned Foo Fighters front man Grohl, along with his bandmates, let nothing stand in their way of giving the thousands of hardcore local fans a night to remember -- not even broken bones.
Despite Grohl literally breaking a leg during the band’s show in Gothenburg, Sweden just last month, the rock and roller took to the stage -- leg brace and all -- and still managed to pull off an applaud-worthy performance, bellowing out at the top of his lungs and shredding the guitar while sitting in his Game of Thrones-inspired chair on stage.
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl performs as the closing headliner of this year’s Ansan M Valley Rock Festival on Sunday. (CJ E&M)
“Hello, I‘ve waited here for you, everlong.” In the band’s first-ever concert on the peninsula, no opening line could be more poignant in the Foo Fighters opening performance of its 1997 hit single “Everlong.”
Feeling almost like a Foo Fighters greatest hits show, the bandmates ignited the crowd with its highly anticipated performances of big-time fan favorite hits including “Learn to fly,” My Hero,” “These Days” and the band’s 2007 smash hit, “The Pretender,” which reigned over the Billboard’s Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks and landed the members one of their 11 Grammy wins for Best Hard Rock Performance.
The band ended the night with an extended rendition of “Best of You,” promising the local fans -- who continued to sing long after the band had exited the stage -- they would most assuredly return to Korea in the future.
This year’s rock fest also brought in headlining overseas acts The Chemical Brothers, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Motorhead, deadmau5, Rudimental and the up-and-coming “schizoid pop” American duo Twenty One Pilots -- who were named as new “Artists to Watch” by MTV in 2013.
Also representing the local talent at this year event were popular local bands Jang Kiha and the Faces, Dynamic Duo, Daybreak, Idiotape, Guckkasten and others.
By Julie Jackson (
juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)
