photos by Andrew Markowitz.

When We Love DC was invited to cover The Foo Fighters on Friday night at the Verizon Center I offered it up to one of our other music writers because, frankly, I just don’t listen to their music too much. I have much respect for Dave Grohl and all of the interesting projects he is responsible for, or has been a part of, but of all the music he has made The Foo Fighters is the most vanilla to me. When compared to crap on mainstream radio The Foo Fighters shine as one of the last examples of successful good rock music. But when you stack the band’s output up against Killing Joke or Nirvana, Probot or Scream; I am much more interested in all of the above. So I was content to pass this show up (even though the triple bill with Social Distortion and The Joy Formidable was intriguing). Then last minute scheduling conflicts reared their ugly head and I ended up pinch hitting this one anyway.

So I found myself sitting in a damn good seat at the Verizon Center not really knowing what to expect. The Joy Formidable, Social Distortion, and The Foo Fighters are all bands that somehow I have never seen despite my prolific live music experiences and their reputations as excellent live acts. To be quite honest, like The Foo Fighters, Social Distortion is a band that although I respect I never really listen to either. I’m much more of a DK or Black Flag man when it comes to West Coast Punk. A friend of a friend has been trying to talk me into The Joy Formidable for a couple years now and I went into the show probably the most curious about them. A few days before the show I posted on FB about the show by saying, “I’m expecting to be either seriously impressed or completely bored.”

Guess which one it was?
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