It would have made total, complete sense if Foo Fighters had brought a somber, deeply heavy concert to Hershey this week. The rock veterans’ latest album, last year’s But Here We Are, was not only written in response to the 2022 death of drummer Taylor Hawkins — who had provided the rhythmic heartbeat of the band since 1997 — but also in response to frontman Dave Grohl’s mother Virginia passing that same year. It’s a propulsive, cathartic collection of songs cycling around loss, grief, and healing, and it ranks among the best releases in the Foo Fighters discography.

But somber is not what Grohl does, exactly. He’s beloved for his lighthearted irreverence, for the way he simultaneously pokes fun at and embodies rock and roll tropes, the way he goes to lengths to observe and engage his fervent fanbase. And from the way he and the Foos kicked off their first Pennsylvania stadium headliner at Hersheypark this Tuesday — with the propulsive rage of their 2002 hit “All My Life,” itself a song addressing personal setbacks and a desire for better — it was clear: Grohl, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Nate Mendel, guitarist Chris Shiflett, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, and new drummer Josh Freese were here to have fun and celebrate life and music.

Foo Fighters | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

This manifested in Grohl storming the stage left and right, forgoing the need to sing every vocal on cue in favor of thrashing with his guitar atop fans in the front row, howling “AWWWWWWRIIGGGGHHHT” in the microphone for like the three-dozenth time that night, and yet it never got old. It manifested in the way he and the Foos slid classic rock Easter eggs in to their songs: “Paranoid” and “Enter Sandman” on “No Son Of Mine,” “Blackbird” on “Nothing At All.” On the band intros, too, each member took their bows to a famous hook of their choosing, with O.G. punk Smear (who, in the 70s, raged with the L.A. nihilists The Germs) riffing to The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” while Freese played the pummeling “March Of The Pigs” drumbeat (he’s a longtime touring member of Nine Inch Nails). And turning to the Foo Fighters own catalog, it manifested in glorious, uplifting singalongs to “Learn to Fly,” “My Hero,” “Best Of You” and so many more.

In between, Grohl poked fun at fans bouncing a beach ball (“Put that away! What, are you at a Phish concert?”), talked Delmarva shore points (“Rhehobeth always seemed too high-class for me. I’m more of an Ocean City guy. I don’t fuck with Bethany, I skip Rhehobeth and go right to Ocean City.”), and sang an acoustic “Skin And Bones” in a heavy caricature of an OCMD accent. (It almost sounded British.)

That’s not to say the serious undercurrent of But Here We Are was brushed under the table. “Under You,” performed acoustic and dedicated to “my friend,” was already a tearjerker, and stripping away the band energy of the album version heightened the impact of bars like “Someone said I’ll never see your face again, part of me just can’t believe it’s true / Pictures of us sharing songs and cigarettes, this is how I’ll always picture you.” The new “Nothing At All” was hard and heavy, while a soaring take on 1999’s “Aurora” was the one point in the show where Grohl addressed Hawkins by name, saying his former bandmate is “always here watching” and sending out Hawkins’ favorite Foo Fighters song in his memory. And for an encore, the ten-minute expanse of But Here We Are’s “The Teacher” was the ultimate catharsis, followed by a turbo-charged “Everlong,” a love song Grohl wrote while going through a divorce, and a reminder that even in desperate times, music is a path to healing.

Also worth mentioning are the hyper-stacked openers the Foos brought for this tour: the kinetic, explosive Amyl and The Sniffers from Melbourne, Australia, whose garage rock went hard heated up the early-arriving fans, as well as Swedish vets The Hives, who 30 years later still have an impossibly charismatic frontperson in the cool-strutting, high-kicking, splits-doing Howlin’ Pelle Almquist (they just announced a headlining date at The Fillmore Philly with local heads The Mary Veils on September 29th). Check out photos of the full show below; the Foo Fighters’ tour continues tonight in Cincy at the Great American Ball Park, then picks up Sunday in the Twin Cities at Target Field.

Amyl and The Sniffers | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Amyl and The Sniffers | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

The Hives | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

The Hives | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Foo Fighters | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Foo Fighters | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Dawes: “When My Time Comes” (XPoNential Music Festival – 2019)