In The Loop Magazine From Desert Rock to Stadium Thunder Queens Of The Stone Age And Foo Fighters Command Chicago's Lakefront At Soldier Field

From Desert Rock to Stadium Thunder Queens Of The Stone Age And Foo Fighters Command Chicago’s Lakefront At Soldier Field

Aug 10, 2026 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

By Kelly Clausen

There are concerts, and then there are those nights that feel more like an event. Saturday night was one of those nights. By 1:30 in the afternoon, the parking lots surrounding Soldier Field were already alive with the unmistakable energy of a summer rock festival. Grills were firing, beers were flowing, bootleg parking lot T-shirts passed around, and thousands of fans were settling into a day that wouldn’t end until nearly midnight. By the time Queens of the Stone Age took the stage at 6:30, the place had already been partying for hours with opening act from Philadelphia, Mannequin Pussy, kicking it all off.

Officially, it was the “Take Cover Tour 2026,” featuring two of modern rock’s most enduring rock heavyweights: Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters. In reality, it felt like a one-night-only festival built around two bands that know exactly how to command a massive audience. And Chicago showed up.

The weather couldn’t have been much better for an outdoor concert along the lakefront. The August air was warm without being oppressive, and the skies cooperated beautifully. With Lake Michigan providing the backdrop and Soldier Field glowing under the evening sky, it was about as close to a perfect Chicago summer concert night as you could ask for. Of course, getting there was another story.

Soldier Field remains one of the great outdoor concert venues in the city. There is something undeniably spectacular about watching a massive concert production with Chicago and Lake Michigan surrounding you. But getting to the stadium can be an exercise in patience. Traffic around the South Loop and lakefront can be brutal on concert and event nights, and parking prices have reached the point where nearly $60 for a spot feels less like parking and more like an additional concert ticket. Still, once inside, all of that seemed to disappear.

Queens of the Stone Age have become familiar faces in Chicago. The band was here as recently as last October for their “Catacombs” tour, but that show at the Chicago Theatre feels almost like a completely different band compared with what hit the Soldier Field stage Saturday night. The Chicago Theatre performance had a more subdued, atmospheric quality at times feeling almost like an upscale lounge act. It was intimate, controlled and deliberately restrained.

Soldier Field was none of that. This was Queens of the Stone Age at full rock-concert volume. Josh Homme and company walked onto the stage after six and immediately turned the lakefront into a wall of sound. The guitars were huge, the drums hit with physical force and Homme’s unmistakable voice floated somewhere between menace, swagger and dark humor. This was a return to fashion for QOTSA a true, loud, unapologetic rock show.

The band ripped through favorites including “Regular John” “Little Sister,” “Go With The Flow,” and end with “A Song for the Dead,” giving longtime fans exactly what they came for. There was no need for elaborate theatrics. The songs did the heavy lifting. The one thing I had hoped for was an appearance by Dave Grohl himself on the drums, to perform any one of the songs he recorded with the Queens of the Stone Age back in 2002 for ‘Songs For The Deaf’ but sadly, it wasn’t to be. I feel like this was a missed opportunity, but maybe they’re saving this for a later date on the tour.

Homme also made a point of acknowledging the Chicago crowd, repeatedly showing appreciation for the fans who came out and making the connection between the band and audience feel genuine rather than obligatory. And judging by the response, Chicago was more than happy to welcome them back. After roughly an hour and a half of Queens’ desert-rock thunder, the stage went dark. The crowd knew what was next.

At approximately eight o’clock, the Foo Fighters took the stage. And Dave Grohl wasted little time establishing the evening’s mission. “We’re here to somehow play 31 years of music in just 3 hours,” Grohl told the crowd. Challenge accepted.

For the next three hours, Foo Fighters delivered the kind of sprawling, career-spanning rock show that has become increasingly rare in the stadium era. There were hits, deep cuts, stories, jokes, memories, solos, acoustic moments, band introductions and enough guitar volume to remind everyone that this was still a rock concert.

Grohl has always had a special relationship with Chicago starting in his teens traveling through with his parents, and he made that affection obvious throughout the night. In the hours before the show, the singer had been spotted around town and even made a visit to Chicago burger institution Kuma’s Corner with Anthrax’s Charlie Benette, adding another chapter to his long history of embracing the city. But once he hit the stage, the focus was music. And there was a lot of it. (photo: Kuma’s Corner/Charlie Benante)

The opening portion of the show was pure Foo Fighters arena-rock adrenaline. Eleven songs came roaring out of the gate, including, “All My Life, “Hero” and “No Son of Mine,” which featured a nasty little detour into Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades.” It was the kind of unexpected moment that made the stadium erupt. Grohl has mastered the art of making a giant stadium feel like a neighborhood bar. He talked to the crowd. He told stories. He laughed at himself. And, most importantly, he made the songs feel personal.

Then the massive stadium production changed gears. Grohl and the band moved to a smaller front-stage setup, referred to as the “B” stage, and the evening became more intimate. The volume dropped. The songs were stripped down. The massive Soldier Field crowd suddenly felt a little closer. It was here that Grohl delivered one of the funniest stories of the evening before “Big Me.” “This is a song that we stopped playing a long time ago because I got sick of people throwing Mentos on stage,” he said. The reference, of course, was to the famously bizarre Mentos-filled music video for the song. The crowd erupted. It was at this point that time caught up with me and realized that was 30 years ago.

One of the night’s more memorable stories came during “Under You,” when Grohl explained that the song’s origins actually date back to his Nirvana days. “I wrote this song way back when with Nirvana. I was sleeping on a couch and it just came out of me one night,” he explained. Suddenly, a song from the Foo Fighters catalog became part of a much larger musical history. That is one of Grohl’s greatest strengths. He doesn’t simply perform songs he gives them a backstory.

Moments like that are why Foo Fighters remain so effective live. The band can fill a stadium with sound, but Grohl is equally comfortable standing in front of thousands of people with nothing more than a guitar and a story.

After returning to the main stage, the Foo jumped right back into the rock segments with “La Dee Da” and “Run”. Then Grohl introduced the members of Foo Fighters individually, but instead of simply rattling off names, he told the Chicago audience where each musician came from and how they eventually found their way into the Foo Fighters. Basically, he handed the mic over to them. What followed was essentially a music history lesson or origin stories of the Foo.

Guitarist Chris Shiflett went first, performing “Invisible” from his former band No Use for a Name.

Bass player Nate Mendel followed with “Seven,” representing Sunny Day Real Estate.

Then came keyboardist Rami Jaffee, whom Grohl reminded everyone had previously played with The Wallflowers. The opening notes of “One Headlight” rang out, and the crowd absolutely lost it.

Then Grohl turned to his longtime friend, guitarist and former Nirvana backing guitarist Pat Smear. Who’s very name rocked the walls of the house. Grohl said, “Now listen, I’ve spent the last 34 years fucking with this guy.” he continues “Now it’s time for some real punk rock.” The band launched into the Germs classic “Manimal.” For longtime fans of Grohl’s musical history, it was a moment. But the biggest surprise was still coming.

Foo Fighters’ newest member, Ilan Rubin, has a résumé that reads like a history of modern rock. His most recent major stop before joining Foo Fighters was Nine Inch Nails, but his musical résumé stretches across an impressive number of bands and projects. Grohl joked about having no idea which song Rubin could possibly choose because he’d been in so many bands. He said, “When I asked Ilan what he’d like to play, he choose something unexpected.”

Rubin came down from behind the drums and picked up a guitar and Grohl sat down behind the kit. For old-school Dave Grohl fans, the next few minutes were something special. Grohl returned to his roots behind the drums for “Tap Dancing in a Mindfield” from Grohl’s former project The New Regime. Seeing Grohl back behind a drum kit, even briefly, was one of those moments that could only happen at a Foo Fighters show. And then Rubin reminded everyone why he was sitting behind that drum kit in the first place. Shortly afterward, he delivered a drum solo that Grohl simply summed up with, “Now that’s a drum solo!” He wasn’t kidding.

By the time Foo Fighters returned to the main set, the show had transformed into a celebration of the band’s entire history. The final stretch returned to full rock mode, with nine more songs building toward the inevitable emotional release of “Best of You.” The entire stadium sang along. Thousands of voices became one giant chorus. Then, just as it seemed the night was over, Foo Fighters disappeared. But nobody was leaving. The encore brought three more songs: “The Teacher,” “Exhausted,” and finally “Everlong.”

And then came the fireworks. With the lakefront behind the stage and the Chicago skyline nearby, the sky erupted as Foo Fighters closed the night in spectacular fashion. Three hours. Thirty-one years of music. One very loud Chicago evening.

There is something bigger happening with Foo Fighters right now than simply another tour. The band has been through an extraordinary amount of turmoil over the past several years. They lost longtime drummer and Grohl’s close friend Taylor Hawkins. They moved through the difficult transition of having Josh Freese temporarily fill the drummer’s chair before the lineup changed again. Grohl himself has endured enormous personal scrutiny and upheaval, including the fallout from revelations about his personal life. Through all of it, Foo Fighters have continued. And on this night, they didn’t look like a band trying to survive. They looked like a band that had something to prove.

Grohl commanded Soldier Field with the confidence of someone who has spent decades learning exactly how to control a stadium. He ran from one side of the stage to the other, played guitar, told stories, laughed, screamed and occasionally reminded everyone that underneath the enormous production was still a guy who simply loves playing rock music. “I really like it when you all join me”. Grohl said, periodically throughout the night. Those are things that makes Foo Fighters different.

And, their fans aren’t casual. They’re lifers, 30 years on, now multigenerational. They’ve grown up with this band. They’ve watched them evolve, watched them lose friends, watched them rebuild and watched them continue to show up. And Chicago showed up right alongside them. The “Take Cover Tour 2026” wasn’t simply a night of rock bands sharing a stage. It was a reunion.

Queens of the Stone Age returned to Chicago and reminded everyone just how devastatingly loud and powerful they can be when given a stadium-sized stage. Foo Fighters followed by turning three hours into a living history of one of America’s most important rock bands.

From the parking-lot parties beginning in the early afternoon to the final fireworks at nearly midnight, Soldier Field became less like a football stadium and more like the center of Chicago’s rock universe for one perfect summer night. The traffic was terrible. The parking was ridiculous. The volume was deafening. And nobody seemed to care. Because when Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age come to town, Chicago doesn’t just attend a concert. Chicago shows up.

For more on the Foo Fighters, click here

For photos of the Foo Fighters, click here

For more on Queens of the Stone Age, click here

For photos of Queens of the Stone Age, click here