‘It Would Take a Lot to Say No to Australia’: Foo Fighters Kick-Off Tour Down Under With Three-Hours of Power

The Foos were back on familiar turf for their Take Cover Australian tour opener at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, the noisy neighbor to the XXXX brewery. 11/5/2026 Foo Fighters First We Feast/Hot Ones Versus Australia is at the mercy of factors beyond anyone’s control. Extreme weather, the tyranny of distance. This great southern land is at the ass-end of the world, a journey that that will take many travelers a day out of their life to get there, and another to return home. In rocks the Foo Fighters, again, urging you to hold their beer. In January of this year, the U.S. band completed the long-haul for a one-off show in Launceston, the second city of Tasmania, an island some 1,600 miles north of Antarctica. On that occasion, the Foos spent 48 hours traveling, for a three-hour show at UTAS Stadium. Mission accomplished. Four years earlier, in 2022, Dave Grohl and Co. performed for one-night only at GMHBA Stadium in Geelong, a satellite city of Melbourne, to help refuel a touring industry crippled by the lockdown. On Thursday night (Nov. 5), the Foos were back on familiar turf for their Take Cover Australian tour opener at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, the noisy neighbor to the XXXX brewery. It’s their second visit to this country in 10 months. In a quirk of the schedule, the band will break after the Adelaide date on the tour, Nov. 17, and return in late January for New Zealand shows and a tour closer in Perth. Count them. That’s three visits to Australia in a year, all of them for concerts produced by Frontier Touring. The Foos love Australia, and it’s reciprocated. Guitarist Chris Shiflett stepped out wearing an AC/DC shirt, with the sleeves hacked off. Grohl recounted his three-decade-long affair with the country, before the band played “Big Me” from their self-titled 1995 debut album. The parody “Footos” music video, Grohl revealed, was shot here. The Foos might as well have Aussie passports at this point. “I’m so f—ing grateful, and lucky, that we’re still here 30 years later, and coming to tour for you guys again,” Grohl told his audience. “It would take a lot to say no to Australia.” From the gritty staccato chords of “All My Life” and Grohl’s “are you f—ing ready” pep talk, through to the Foos’ traditional ending number “Everlong,” Billboard soaked up the action on a glorious spring night. Check out four outstanding moments below. Shout Out To The Old School There’s no mystery to a Foo Fighters show. You know what’s coming. Stadium rock, old favorites, hits, energy. It’s a meal that’s both nutritious and heavy enough that you don’t leave hungry. The Rock Hall-inducted band paid it back to Generation X, the “old school,” many of whom were in the crowd, with their kids along for the ride. The first 10 songs was a greatest hits set, opening, as the Foos do, with “All My Life.” One by one they knocked them down. “The Pretender, “Times Like These,” “Rope,” “Stacked Actors,” My Hero,” “Learning to Fly.” These guys don’t come down to land. Starting at 7.30pm, early even for this city whose residents have the reputation as the earliest risers on earth, the band blasted through 26 songs, finishing at 10.30pm. Three solid hours of power. The Speeches Grohl doesn’t just sing, scream and play the guitar (sometimes he drums, too). The rocker isn’t shy of saying some words, either, with the tens of thousands gathered before him. “Welcome to the first night of our Australian tour,” he said over the arpeggios of “These Days.” “First time we came here, I think it was 30 years ago…the first time I went to Australia. It was a tour called the Summersault tour. Actually, there’s a movie about it. It’s called The Best Summer, you should watch that. Because we were little f—ing kids, man. That was a long time ago. I look back on that now. And I think… I’m so fucking grateful, and lucky, that we’re still here 30 years later, and coming to tour for you guys again. It would take a lot to say no to Australia.” And “sometimes we only come out for 24 f—ing hours to play a show,” a reference to those Geelong and Launceston dates. Tonight, he promised, “we’re going to play as many songs as we can. It’s why we play song after song, after song after song. We got so many f—ing songs. But we’ll try to play as long as we can for you. We got some of that old school motherf—ers.” Later, Grohl explained that he faceplanted on the Suncorp Stadium stage, or “ate sh–” in his words. Still, for a guy who broke a leg after falling during a performance in Sweden back in 2015, it was the type of injury he could walk off. Taylor Hawkins is no longer with us, but not forgotten. The band paid tribute to the beloved drummer with a performance of 1999’s “Aurora.” “This song is very special to us,” Grohl said. “We play it every night for Taylor Hawkins.” The Covers With all those “old school” songs, and newbies to select from the band’s 12th and latest album Your Favorite Toy, the Foos still found time to play some covers. The band burned rubber with a cover of “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead, the British heavy metal legends that supported the Foos in the past and whose singer, the late Lemmy Kilmister, was a good friend of Grohl. And, with the penultimate song of the show, performed Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street,” with Shiflett reimagining that famous sax riff with his axe. The Foos also crunched “Marigold,” which Grohl first released in 1992 on his solo cassette project Pocketwatch, and later re-recorded with Nirvana as the b-side to 1993’s “Heart-Shaped Box.” “We don’t do it often, and haven’t done in a long time,” he explained, as he dedicated the song “to all the Nirvana people here tonight.” Judging by the volume of Nirvana t-shirts in the audience, there were many. The New Lineup Australians got, for the first time, a close look at the six-strong Foos lineup featuring Grohl, Shiflett, Nate Mendel (bass), Pat Smear (guitar), new drummer Ilan Rubin, and keyboardist Rami Jaffee. Rubin, playing behind one of the better drummers in the business, and succeeding the master Hawkins, had big shoes to fill. He didn’t miss a beat, and left no doubt about his supreme talents with several drum solos. In a fun spot, each of Grohl’s bandmates had a crack at playing a song from an earlier band. When introducing Nate’s song “Seven,” from his previous life with Seattle’s Sunny Day Real Estate, Grohl ripped out an audible burp. With live music, always expect the unexpected. And when it came time for Rubin for play “Tap Dancing in a Minefield,” he did a switcheroo with Grohl which put the two-time Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductee back behind the kit, for a few minutes at least. Done, and onto the next one this Saturday, Nov. 7 at Queensland Country Bank Stadium in Townsville, north Queensland. Setlist “All My Life”“The Pretender”“Times Like These”“Rope”“Stacked Actors”“My Hero”“Learn to Fly”“These Days”“Walk”“This Is a Call”“No Son of Mine” (with Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” interlude)“Wheels (Acoustic)”“Marigold (Acoustic)”“Window (Acoustic)”“Big Me (Acoustic)”“Under You (Acoustic)”“Your Favorite Toy”“Run”“Invincible / Seven / One Headlight / Manimal / Tap Dancing in a Minefield”“Monkey Wrench”“Breakout”“Aurora (Dedicated to Taylor Hawkins)”“Best of You”“Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty cover)”“Hey, Johnny Park!”“Everlong” Via Setlist.fm. Tour Dates Thursday, Nov. 5 2026 — ​Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, QLD​With special guests Full Flower Moon Band (Brisbane) + Mini Skirt (Byron Bay) Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026 — ​Queensland Country Bank Stadium, Townsville, QLD​With special guests Full Flower Moon Band (Brisbane) + Downgirl (Sydney) Tuesday Nov. 10 2026 — ​Accor Stadium, Sydney, NSW​With special guests The Belair Lip Bombs (Frankston) + TEENS (Hobart) Thursday, Nov. 123, 2026 — ​McDonalds Jones Stadium, Newcastle, NSW​With special guests The Buoys (Sydney) + C.O.F.F.I.N (Sydney) Saturday, Nov. 14 2026 — ​Marvel Stadium, Melbourne, VIC​With special guests The Belair Lip Bombs (Frankston) + FRENZEE (Melbourne) Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2026 — ​Coopers Stadium, Adelaide, SA​With special guests Kurralta Park (Adelaide) + Spooky Eyes (Launceston) Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2027 –​One New Zealand Stadium, Christchurch, NZ​With special guests Dartz (Wellington) + Seek Help! (Dunedin) Friday, Jan. 22 2027 — ​Western Springs Stadium, Auckland, NZ​With special guests Dick Move (Auckland) + Ringlets (Auckland) Monday, Jan. 25, 2027 — ​HBF Park, Perth, WA​With special guests Southern River Band (Perth) + Last Quokka (Perth) Visit frontiertouring.com/foofighters for tickets. Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox Sign Up