BY CRYSTAL K. WIEBE

The Foo Fighters are bona fide rock stars. And bona fide rock stars draw all kinds of music fans to their performances – from the creatures of rock who spend every night staring up at some stage to the casual fans who blow their wad once or twice a year on a big name concert, which becomes as much of an excuse to get rowdy as to enjoy live music.

Examples from the Foo Fighters’ stop in Kansas City: the drunken or drugged-out blond chick who headbanged and pawed her date for every song; the dudes behind me who rudely touched my friend’s tattoo “on a dare,” threw a half-full cup of beer toward a security guard and almost got into a fight with the guys who actually got splashed with beer; the smashed older woman rocking out through her sunroof after the show; whoever pissed in a sink in the women’s bathroom.

Had Dave Grohl witnessed any of that, he probably would have made a joke. The brash frontman interacted directly with audience members – calling out a dude for double-fisting beers, inviting a fan to a strip club and tossing a drink in another guy’s face – throughout a two-hour-plus set, which spanned two stages. The show began at one end of the massive arena, where the band played in front of four giant television screens that alternately displayed the band itself and pre-selected visuals, like the Marilyn Monroe-ish face of a blond woman. After several Foo standards (including “The Pretender,” “Times Like These,” and “Learn to Fly”), the band broke into an extended jam of The Who’s “Young Man Blues.” The song about how things get easier when you’re established and have money became a metaphor for the Foos’ career, as Grohl followed the drawn-out blues jam with references to the passage of time.

“We’ve been a band 14 years,” Grohl shouted. “We’ve got a lot of fucking songs and we’re gonna play a lot of them tonight.” By a show of hands, he tried to determine how many people had been to a Foo Fighters concert before. He determined that, like most nights, 9/10 of the crowd was there for the first time. “Well, it’s a lot fucking better now,” Grohl concluded.

As the set progressed, he ventured onto a catwalk that stretched across the middle of the floor, clearly enjoying the way his fans rushed the area and tried to touch him as he sang. About the third time Grohl walked that runway, he started waving the audience to walk with him. When he got to the end, another circular stage lowered from the ceiling, and the seven other members of the band followed. “Congratulations,” Grohl yelled to the people he’d just gotten closer to. “Your seats don’t suck shit anymore!” Appropriate to the more intimate vibe, the band proceeded to play a bunch of songs in acoustic, including “Skin and Bones,” “Marigold” and “My Hero.” In a faux wrap-up, the rest of the band exited the stage just before Grohl cranked into “Everlong” alone. Three quarters of the way through the song, he darted back across that catwalk. The lights rose on the first stage, where the whole band closed out the quintessential Foo Fighters track together.

“Monkeywrench” and “One by One” followed. And then the band went backstage. After just a few seconds of stomping and yelling from the crowd, the four big TVs lit up with a live shot of the night’s setlist – labeled “Kansas Fuckin’ City.” The camera scanned up and down, zeroing in on the blacked-out encore portion, and then the shot cut to Grohl, grinning, shirtless, chomping gum and holding a plastic cup. The crowd roared as he held up one finger, then two and then three, as if the length of the encore was really up to the fans. It wasn’t – in the end, the band “decided” to play four more songs, including “Big Me” and “Best Of You.” And then the Foo Fighters left the stage for real.