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Due to Covid, BottleRock was postponed last year, same as all the other events in the past 18 months. Postponed this year from the annual Memorial Day weekend at the end of May, moved to Labor Day weekend. I attended BottleRock only one of the three days this year. The one day was Day 3, Foo Fighters headlined. Apart from BottleRock weekend being postponed, the Friday night headliner, Stevie Nicks, cancelled, (due to Covid fear), Chris Stapleton took Nicks' place and then he cancelled. In their place The Highwomen stepped in to headline Friday night. The Highwomen comprised of Brandi Carlisle, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. An all female country group, named for Johnny Cash's The Highwaymen. Saturday, Guns and Roses headlined and then Sunday, September 5 was Cage the Elephant before Foo Fighters hit the stage.  

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Foo Fighters were on form as usual, performing many of their monster hits.  Dave Grohl, guitarist, drummer and frontman was on fire, chatting and singing to the 30 thousand+ strong live concert audience, most of which there was not a mask in sight. A couple weeks before this show, the Foo Fighters organization had to cancel their LA show at the Forum due to Covid infecting someone in the Foo organization. Yet, Grohl looks out into the faces of the 30,000+ crowd asking them to scream, and sing, even though he sees no masks in the sea of Foo fans, whilst covid cases are still rising. Nevertheless, the Foo set was awesome and they finished ten minutes before curfew, unlike last time they played BottleRock in 2017 where the plug was pulled at 10pm, but the band and the audience sang the last song with no PA system working. I assume the band got slapped with Napa Valley fines for doing this. All in all, I AM a FOO fan and music photographer and seeing them is always energizing and fun! FF is one of those bands that even if you can't name one of their familiar songs, you'll find yourself knowing a bunch of their tunes when you hear them! 

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