“The radio doesn’t play songs for me anymore,” says Bob, 54, who is situated in a lawn chair, deciding between a drag from the Marlboro Red in his left hand and the Budweiser can in his right. He chooses the Bud first, a sensible move given the sun bouncing off the concrete of the endless parking lot he’s camped out in near Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Aug. 13.
Foo Fighters are set to play inside the stadium in five hours, and Bob is with his son, 31-year-old Albert, and a gaggle of his buddies. “I’m the old fart of the group, so maybe there is stuff out there,” Bob says, now puffing his cig. “But 20, 30 years ago you could turn on the radio and hear rock music. Now I just turn on a podcast on the way to work.”
“Radio sucks!” Albert yells from a few feet away, underlining the point. “Give us some rock.”
The duo was in the right place. Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has become a one-man army committed to keeping guitar-driven rock alive. He opened the second song of their set that evening, “The Pretender,” by shouting, “Do you want some rock ‘n’ roll music? I know Philadelphia loves rock ‘n’ roll!” It elicited one of the biggest responses of the night, as the stadium roared with support.
