Foo Fighters

"Let’s see your nipples!" shouts a lone but very loud male voice in the crowd.

"Sorry, I don't show my tits like Courtney Love does at every show," retorts Dave Grohl.

Jokey, throwaway comment or not, it speaks volumes about the musicians' respective predicaments. While Love has never managed to stop being the ex-Mrs. Kurt Cobain, Grohl has escaped Nirvana to a degree that's probably even surprised himself.

"Secret" in the most public way possible, this Witnness warm-up gig marks the end of a week of Dublin-based rehearsals. They mightn't have played together in public for a couple of years, but it doesn't show as the quartet tear – I use the word advisedly – through their greatest hits plus.

One hopes that support act Jimmy Eat World are looking and learning from the wings. The likes of 'The Middle' and 'Bleed American' may be great pop-punk anthems, but they're only going to elicit a ripple of applause when they're performed so arthritically. You'd have thought that after being around for eight years, they'd have developed a bit of stagecraft, but nope, the Arizona quartet are to frenetic movement what Shane MacGowan is to temperance.

Anyway, we digress.

"It's taken three fucking years, man, but the new record's good!" enthuses Grohl as they launch into the first of the night's debutante's, 'Times Like These'. For all of their talk of not wanting to be a pop band, the song is blessed with the sort of hook that Louis Walsh would give his hind-teeth for. Ditto old faves like 'Learn To Fly' and 'Monkey Wrench' which are equal parts bollocky rifferama and stunning melody.

Realising that they'll be lynched if they don't do an encore, the Foos ignore the Ambassador's curfew and finish with a version of 'Everclear' that's so slammable that even I, a 38-year-old geriatric, take to the mosh-pit.

If this is them in warm-up mode, I can't fucking wait for Witnness!