Foo Fighters Back and Forth

Saw this one on Astro and I liked it. I have seen quite a few documentaries about rock bands and most of them are well done, this one included. It give a good introduction on foo fighters as a band. I really did not know that they have survived so many band members recycling. It also gave an insight to how much of a frontman and a leader Ghrol is. I always thought of him as the drummer for Nirvana and especially his Everlong and Learning to Fly music video seems to present him somewhat of a goofball but here you can see the Leader, dictator cum visionary of Foo Fighters that he really is.

Serious about his craft and his band, Grohl is not too shy to redo all of the tracks of his earlier drummer without his knowledge when he thought he could not cut the mustard. I seen this kind of same scenario play out in other successful bands as well such as Metallica (Hetfield and Ulrich) and Megadeth (need I mention who here?). Here, I think the longevity of a band depends on the vision of the main visionary but how long the stay together also depends on how he can keep his asshole self in check while dolling his orders! In fact I would go so far as to say this kind of hierarchy is not exclusive to grunge bands. They exists everywhere. I digress, that is a discussion for another place and possibly another blog.

Back to the Foo Fighters, other things that I liked about documentary is the way it's edited. It's seamless. Interviews with band members are used to seg way into the next discussion or bring the show forward. It's good, almost like a monologue or a "self-interview", if the term exists. A documentary about rock bands usually tries it's best to avoid over shining the spot light on the lead man resulting in a lop sided view of the band but then it's hard. They are after the lead man and the mouth piece of the group, here though, I think that while Grohl is mostly featured but then we also get to know the other guys in the band, let me fess up, before this I did not even know their names. I still thought that FF consisted of three guys. In my head they are forever trapped in the era of Everlong.

Back and Forth piqued my interest so much in this band that I went looking around for their other songs and I must say that Grohl throughout the years have matured and blossomed as the lead for FF to the point that I can say that his vocals is not the stand out weak factor of FF. Their music too shows a tightness of a band who survived turmoils and over came them as a team would get. The other only time I heard music so tight was with Pearl Jam of yore (Don't know about today, heard that they on a downward spiral). So give this one a watch, you will be introduced to one of the most enduring bands around that still produces great music till today!

5 out of 5