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home » festivals » V Festivals » V Festival (Chelmsford) 2003
Foo FightersV Festival (Chelmsford) reviewTuesday 26th August 2003 V Stage, 7.30pm, Saturday Mr Dave Grohl newly married and beaming smiles bounds onto the stage for a heroes welcome. The number one nice guy in rock stands, chews gum and surveys the crowd. Twenty years in hardcore and the fellas come a long way. His mission now, to blow us away with the kind of muscular high octane performance the Foo's are noted for. But, for me at least, he fails. 'One by One' and 'Times Like These' open, running fast at the taught end of tight - profits of a discipline learned well on the underground. The crowd is exuberant, everyone loves it. Bright blue inflatable frizbees fly this way and that. A balloon shaped like a black horse drifts slowly across the sky. But despite the general excitement I mourn the lack of that dirt under the finger nails vitality, a key component of truly compelling - and by that I mean shocking - heavy rock. Primal thrills that Grohl's buddies the QOTSA will supply in abundance in their own utterly inimitable way the following day.  'Hero' and 'Learn to Fly' pass by unremarkably and Grohl's repeated screams of 'whoa yeah' wear thin. Smacking, as they do, of the motivational devices one might expect find employed at the average aerobics session. The bile within 'Stacked Actors' serves as a genuine high point (Courtney Love are you listening) and new single 'Low', with its punishing rise and fall, maintains these raised standards. But the overall taste in my mouth is of anti-climax. You see Grohl is a man who has touched greatness and it is sad to see him reduced to the plain OK. review by Alistair Hann photos by Luke Seagrave 
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