By Yuri Woodfall – Western Lead Photojournalist, Sound Check Entertainment
September 17, 2026 – Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Alberta
There are rock shows, there are stadium shows, and then there are Foo Fighters shows.
On Thursday night, Foo Fighters brought their Take Cover Tour to Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium for a massive night of rock alongside Queens of the Stone Age and Mannequin Pussy.
And this wasn’t just another Edmonton stop.
At one point during the night, Dave Grohl looked out across Commonwealth and told the crowd that this was the biggest show Foo Fighters had ever played in Edmonton, with 44,000 people in attendance.
For a band more than three decades into its career, that’s a remarkable milestone. Foo Fighters aren’t simply continuing to fill venues — in Edmonton, they’re playing to bigger crowds than ever before.
More than three decades into their career, Foo Fighters have reached the point where choosing what not to play might be harder than putting together a setlist. Their catalogue is stacked with songs that have become part of the fabric of modern rock, and in Edmonton, Grohl and company used nearly three hours to celebrate not only Foo Fighters’ history, but the musical histories of the people standing alongside him.
And when you’re Foo Fighters, you don’t exactly need to ease into things.
Mannequin Pussy
Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy had the task of getting things underway inside Commonwealth Stadium, bringing a considerably different flavour to a bill topped by two giants of alternative rock.
With only half an hour to make their impression, the band wasted little time, opening with “Softly” before moving through “Drunk II” and “Sometimes.”
“I Got Heaven” landed in the middle of the set before “Control,” “OK? OK! OK? OK!” and “Loud Bark” carried them to the finish.
Seven songs and 30 minutes didn’t leave much room for messing around, but Mannequin Pussy provided a considerably heavier introduction to an evening that was only going to get louder.
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age occupying the middle spot on a three-band stadium bill almost feels unfair.
Josh Homme and company arrived with a catalogue capable of headlining massive venues themselves, but this particular Edmonton appearance also came with some unfinished business.
The last time Queens of the Stone Age were scheduled to perform in Edmonton, the band wasn’t able to take the stage.
Homme didn’t ignore that history.
Speaking to the Commonwealth Stadium crowd, he apologized for not being able to perform the last time the band was here, acknowledging an Edmonton audience that had waited for another opportunity to see them.
Then it was time to make up for lost time.
“Run, Pig, Run” got things underway before “Smooth Sailing” and “Paper Machete,” while “In the Fade” provided an early trip back to Rated R.
“My God Is the Sun” and “I Sat by the Ocean” followed before “Little Sister” and “Make It Wit Chu” carried the hour-long set toward its final stretch.
And what a final stretch it was.
“Go With the Flow.”
“No One Knows.”
“A Song for the Dead.”
Three songs from Songs for the Deaf back-to-back provided an absolutely relentless ending, with “A Song for the Dead” serving as one hell of a handoff to Foo Fighters.
After the disappointment surrounding their previous Edmonton date, simply seeing Queens of the Stone Age back onstage in the city carried a little extra significance.
This time, Edmonton finally got its Queens of the Stone Age show.
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters wasted absolutely no time.
“All My Life” opened the show, and within moments Dave Grohl and company had Commonwealth Stadium exactly where they wanted it.
Then came “The Pretender.”
Then “Times Like These.”
Most bands would be happy to have three songs of that calibre waiting somewhere near the end of their set. Foo Fighters used them as their opening statement.
“Rope” followed before the band reached back to There Is Nothing Left to Lose for “Stacked Actors.”
“My Hero” inevitably became one of the night’s enormous stadium singalongs, followed by “Learn to Fly.” “These Days” and “Walk” kept the momentum rolling before “This Is a Call” reached all the way back to Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut.
“No Son of Mine” followed, complete with a taste of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades.”
That ability to move through different generations of Foo Fighters without making any of it feel out of place was one of the strengths of the night. These aren’t simply songs from different records anymore. For many people inside Commonwealth, they’re songs tied to different periods of their lives.
But some of the most memorable moments of the night came when the massive stadium rock show suddenly became considerably more intimate.
From the B-stage to the past
Moving out to the B-stage completely changed the feel of the night.
After spending much of the show commanding the enormous Commonwealth Stadium stage, suddenly everything felt more intimate. For a little while, the spectacle of a stadium show faded into the background and it felt like we were connecting with Foo Fighters on a deeper level.
There was a genuine closeness between the band and the crowd. The stories became more personal, and instead of simply watching Foo Fighters perform, it felt like we were being invited into their history.
“Wheels” began the B-stage portion before one of the night’s most memorable moments arrived with “Marigold.”
Before playing it, Grohl shared an extraordinary piece of the song’s history with the Edmonton crowd: he had written it on Kurt Cobain’s left-handed guitar.
“Marigold” already occupies a unique place in Grohl’s musical history, but hearing him share that story before performing it gave the song another layer entirely.
“Big Me” continued the trip back through the band’s history before “Under You” brought the intimate portion of the evening into a much more recent chapter of Foo Fighters.
For a brief stretch of a massive stadium concert, the distance between Foo Fighters and the people watching them seemed to disappear.
We weren’t just hearing their songs.
We were getting to know them.
Meet the Foo Fighters
Back on the main stage, the band’s introductions became much more than simply Grohl rattling off the names of the musicians standing alongside him.
Grohl explained that there was a requirement for the introductions: each member of Foo Fighters had to play a song from a previous band they had been in.
That turned the introductions into a trip through the musical histories of the musicians standing onstage.
Chris Shiflett reflected on his time with No Use for a Name, including his reference to Snow Jam ’96, while Nate Mendel’s introduction reached back to Sunny Day Real Estate.
Rami Jaffee’s history with The Wallflowers naturally led into “One Headlight.”
There was just one slight problem.
Dave didn’t know all the words.
Grohl joked that he was too lazy to learn the second verse, turning what could have been a straightforward band introduction into another of those wonderfully loose Foo Fighters moments.
Pat Smear’s introduction reached even further into punk history through The Germs, another reminder of just how much musical history exists within this lineup.
Then came Ilan Rubin.
Rubin picked up a guitar while Grohl took his place behind the drums for “Tap Dancing in a Minefield.”
For however many times audiences have watched Grohl command a stage as the frontman of Foo Fighters, there’s still something special about seeing him return to the instrument that first made him one of the most recognizable musicians of his generation.
And right at the end of “Tap Dancing in a Minefield,” Grohl slipped in a tiny surprise.
From behind the kit, he briefly teased the unmistakable kick-snare intro to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
It lasted only a moment, but it was impossible to miss.
It was a small nod to Grohl’s own musical history tucked inside a portion of the show already celebrating where each member of Foo Fighters came from — and one of those little moments that made this particular Foo Fighters show feel unique to the people who were there.
Back to the stadium
With the introductions finished, Foo Fighters turned their attention back to what they do exceptionally well: making a massive stadium feel even bigger.
“Monkey Wrench” delivered exactly that.
Few Foo Fighters songs invite thousands of people to completely lose their voices quite like it, and decades after its release, it remains an absolute monster live.
The band also brought out “Window,” one of the newest additions to their catalogue, before “Breakout” took the show back to There Is Nothing Left to Lose.
Then the evening reached one of its most emotional moments with “Aurora,” dedicated to the late Taylor Hawkins.
In the middle of a night filled with enormous riffs, screaming crowds, jokes and stories, the dedication carried a different kind of weight.
Then came “Best of You,” giving Commonwealth another enormous singalong before the band disappeared ahead of the encore.
When they returned, Foo Fighters reached all the way back to their beginnings with “Exhausted.”
It’s a song from the band’s self-titled 1995 debut — an album largely recorded by Grohl himself — and hearing it inside Commonwealth Stadium more than 30 years later was a reminder of just how improbable the Foo Fighters story has been.
A project that began with Grohl recording songs largely on his own eventually became this: a stadium filled with people singing those songs back at him.
And then there was only one way this could end.
“Everlong.”
There are songs that become hits, and then there are songs that somehow grow beyond the band that created them. “Everlong” has become the latter.
After nearly three hours of music, stories, jokes and a journey through decades of rock history, its opening notes provided one final eruption from Commonwealth Stadium.
And as “Everlong” reached its end, fireworks erupted into the sky above Commonwealth Stadium, putting an exclamation point on an already massive night.
Foo Fighters could easily exist as a nostalgia act at this point. They have the catalogue for it. They could arrive, play the hits, collect the applause and call it a night.
But Edmonton got something considerably more personal than that.
The show offered a reminder that Foo Fighters’ story doesn’t exist in isolation. It runs through Nirvana, Sunny Day Real Estate, No Use for a Name, The Germs, The Wallflowers and decades of friendships and musical history. At the centre of it all remains Dave Grohl — screaming into a microphone one minute, telling stories the next and, when the opportunity presents itself, still perfectly happy to sit behind a drum kit.
On a personal level, this was an incredibly special show for me to cover. Foo Fighters are my favourite live band, and having the opportunity not only to see them again, but to stand in front of that stage and photograph them, was truly incredible.
There are certain assignments where you have to remind yourself just how fortunate you are to be there, camera in hand, documenting a band that means something to you.
This was absolutely one of them.
As the final notes of “Everlong” rang out and fireworks exploded above Commonwealth Stadium, it was the perfect ending to a night I was lucky enough to experience from two perspectives — as a fan and as a photographer.
