Foo Fighters Make Hollywood Bowl Debut With Dudamel and the LA Phil

At the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, Foo Fighters played a sold-out show less like a standard rock set than an orchestral event. It was the band’s first appearance at the venue in its 32-year history, and it landed on Gustavo Dudamel’s penultimate night as Los Angeles Philharmonic music director before he takes up the same post in New York. Dudamel and the orchestra did not simply sit behind the band; they reshaped the material.

“The Pretender” gained horns that pushed it toward something like a lost Bond theme. “Razor,” an acoustic cut from In Your Honor, found depth in strings that mirrored the song’s main instrumental lines. Dave Grohl introduced “Home,” played for the first time since 2007, by saying he could never get through it without crying.

A gospel choir lifted “The Sky Is a Neighborhood” and “Run.” The band dedicated an extended “Aurora” to late drummer Taylor Hawkins, as they have done regularly since his death. Grohl looked out at the full Bowl and said Hawkins would have loved it.

The night closed with “Everlong,” the orchestra and choir rising into a crescendo while fireworks cut across the sky. For 17,500 people, the moment functioned as both a band’s overdue arrival and a conductor’s local send-off.