Foo Fighters Live

About

By Fans, For Fans

This website was created for fans of Foo Fighters to find all sorts of information about the band, primarily relating to their live performances. Since 2006 we have been providing a huge array of information with setlists, recordings, photos and other details on over 1200 live performances.

Another core part of the website focuses on the recording sessions undertaken by Foo Fighters, plus sessions Dave Grohl has undertaken on his own, and with his early bands. We have spent several years researching all of this information to present it in a clear and concise manner for all fans of the band to enjoy.

FooFightersLive has now been established for over 15 years and we hope to be around for as long as the band are and beyond. We strive to continue providing the information and media that we do for everyone to enjoy. By fans, for fans.

Current Team

  1. Photo of Simon Kilmore
    Simon Kilmore

    Admin

    England

  2. Photo of Kirri Liepins
    Kirri Liepins

    Writer

    Australia

  3. Photo of Kurtis Bishop
    Kurtis Bishop

    Editor

    United States

FAQs

Is this an official website? Are you affiliated with the band?

No, this website is not affiliated with the band, its management or record label in any way. The site is owned and operated by fans of the band, for other fans of the band to enjoy.

We have no way to communicate with the band so please don't contact us asking to get hooked up with a backstage pass or for any other request!

What do all the recording names and numbers mean? Audience Audio #1? Soundboard Audio #2b?

We've tried to make the labels and naming systems for recordings as clear as we can, here is a simple explanation.

First of all we give names to the types of recording available. They are:

  • Audience Audio (AUD)

    This means a recording made at a show (usually, but not always, by an audience member - hence the name) with a microphone capturing the show as they hear it. They vary wildly in quality depending on the equipment being used, the acoustics of the venue, and where they are positioned in the venue.

  • Soundboard Audio (SBD)

    This is a recording that is made directly from the soundboard, the equipment used to manage the sound at a live show. A recording device of some sort is connected directly to the board, resulting in a direct recording of the instruments on stage. These recordings are therefore usually very good quality.

  • Amateur Video (AMT)

    Like an audience audio source, but instead this is an amateur video shot from somewhere in the venue, usually in the crowd somewhere but occasionally from the side of stage. Quality again varies depending on the equipment and where they are. Modern Digital sources are of course generally speaking much better than older videos from the 1990s.

  • Professional Video (PRO)

    A video source shot by a professional video/film crew with high end equipment. Usually with multiple cameras around the venue, but sometimes just one or two. Generally always with soundboard audio to go with it.

We then assign recordings a number to keep track of them. Each unique recording of each type gets a number, in the order of which they become available. The first audience audio recording being number one (#1), the second that becomes available is labelled number 2 and so on, quite straight forward.

Unlike audience sources, where theoretically there could be hundreds of unique recording devices located in the venue, there is usually only one or two recordings made from the soundboard, and generally only one professional video camera set up.

If the source we have for the recording is complete and of the highest quality possible it will always be just a number. However on many occasions that isn't the case, this means we must split the sources. So how does that work?

Consider the following examples, first of all a live show. A radio station goes to a show and with permission, makes a recording from the soundboard. They then broadcast the show, but only the first three songs. When that recording became available it would be listed as Soundboard #1, the first soundboard recording.

Consider then some time later, the radio station broadcasts two different songs. Because it's still the same recording we can't label it as Soundboard #2, but it doesn't supercede the first recording, so we must split them. The first recording will now be labelled Soundboard #1a, the second broadcast #1b. If the second recording had included the same three songs as the first, plus the extra songs, the first would've been made redundant (assuming the same quality) and the second recording would have just been the new #1 source.

This can also happen because of different qualities. Continuing the above example, if the second broadcast contained all of the songs from the first broadcast plus some extras, but the recording quality was lower than that of the first broadcast, both would still be needed. The second recording would have more songs, but the first would offer the better quality. Therefore it would be an a/b situation again.

Whilst this is most common with soundboard and professional video sources, it can also occur with audience and amateur sources, depending on circumstances.

Sources in the sessions listings are a little different. If we followed the same rule as above, each recording would only get a new source number if it were a different recording and given that of course there can only be one recording of a session, we would only ever have #1, and anything other than a complete recording of the session in the highest quality would mean split sources.

However, with full recordings of sessions extremely uncommon, we do thins a little differently. Recordings are grouped by their mix. If we consider a session with 15 songs recorded, 12 may be released as an album, and the other three as B-Sides to singles. If the mix across each release was the same, then they would be a/b split, but if they were different, each mix would be it's own number.

For example, if we had 12 songs released on an album mixed by Engineer A, one different song mixed by the same Engineer A on a single, and that same song released on single mixed by engineer B, those sources would be Soundboard #1a, Soundboard #1b and Soundboard #2 respectively.

What about the recording abbreviations and generations? MD(M), ANA(2)?

Our recording abbreviations are quite simple, as are the generations.

  • ANA - A regular analogue cassette tape. May also be abbreviated to 'CASS' but we prefer ANA.
  • DAT - Digital Audio Tape, an advancement of the analogue cassette that allows for better, digital quality.
  • MD - Minidisc recorders, a popular medium for recording on in the late ninties and early to mid noughties. Also later was the Hi-MiniDisc, the same format but with the ability to record in lossless quality.
  • Hi8/Video8 - Two types of older consumer film formats.
  • VHS - The good old video cassette.
  • File formats - In this digital age it's now very common for recordings to be just digital files, with no physical format. These will be noted with their most common abbrebiations such as WAV, MP3, MP4, MKV, TS and more.

The numbers and letters in brackets denote the lowest generation of the recording available. Generation being how far removed from the original 'master' copy a recording is, like generations in a family tree. The letter (M) naturally means master. It will not get better than this. Any number indicates a recording x number of steps away from that master.

That means an ANA(1) would mean the master cassette was copied to another cassette once, and that is what we have. If it were copied twice, it would be an ANA(2), and so on. Why do we note this? Because all analogue formats degrade in quality when copied. A VHS(3) is going to look much worse than a VHS Master.

Recordings made from radio or television will always be listed as first generation, the reason being there can only be one master in the chain. If we consider a radio station recording a show onto a cassette, that is the ANA(M). If it were broadcast over the air and someone were to record it, that would be a first generation. ANA(M) > FM broadcast > ANA(1). If we called it FM > ANA(M), that wouldn't make sense.

Digital formats do not degrade when copied however and so most of these do not note any generation.

How accurate is your data?

We take accuracy very seriously at FFL. The details of the live guide have been meticulously researched to ensure all of the data is correct and present. For setlists of shows our primary source is recordings, followed by paper setlists at the shows and finally attendee recollection. We only add data based on the latter with more than one account, if one person tells us they played a rare song at a show that is not enough for us to add it to the setlist.

We have also put a huge amount of time into researching their recording session history. All sessions have been meticulously investigated with studio owners, mixing engineers and other associates reached out to.

Of course errors will still slip into our work so if you find any please do contact us to let us know.

Do you offer downloads of shows?

Downloads are currently available for over 900 live audio recordings. Visit the shows section of the site to find them, you can also find a list of all recordings on the recordings overview page.

Donations

As noted above, this website is operated by fans, for fans. We have no commercial backing and the site generates no income, by design. All costs, including hosting for the website and live downloads, are currently paid for by Simon. If you would like to help contribute towards costs then a donation of any size is greatly appreciated.



Site Credits

We couldn't have achieved what we have without the contributions of hundreds of people around the world who are too numerous to list here. We would like to specifically thank Pierre Leroy as a joint founder of the website and also Andreas Meuhe and Sam Smith, who both made significant contributions to earlier versions of the website code.

We would also like to specially thank those who have helped us with information for the sessions - Barrett Jones, Reuben Radding, Don Zientara, Richard Gibson, Curtis Mathewson, Paul Brannigan and FooArchive.com.

Photography Credits

Cambria Harkey • Emanuele D'Angelo • Maicol Testi • Dustin Rabin • John Paul Filo • Jo Hale • Kevin Winter • John Shearer • Getty Images • TourBusLive.com • Allison Duck • Stan Honda • Jesse Thayer • Steve Gullick • Danny Clinch • 'Sparragus' • Nick Soulsby

Photos used with permission where possible. If you do not want us to use your photographs on the website please contact us. We will comply with all removal requests immediately.

Get In Touch

If you'd like to get in touch with us for any reason, don't hesitate to drop us a line by visiting our contact page.