Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated the date of a Ben Folds Five and Foo Fighters concert at Deer Creek. The concert took place May 20, 1998.
On April 1, 1996, the Foo Fighters made their first appearance in Indianapolis. I was 13, and I was there.
My best friend Sara Wetzel (née Boschen) and I, probably on cues from the local radio station, called it “April Foo’s Day.” I’d never been to any concert and didn’t know if I could secure permission. But thanks to the perfect storm my friend’s mom agreeing to accompany us and it being spring break, our awkward junior high dreams came true.
This show was before drummer Taylor Hawkins joined the band, around the time no one knew who they were until they realized, “Oh, is that the guy from Nirvana?” And Dave Grohl was our favorite guy from Nirvana. The long hair and reckless abandon with which he attacked his drums is every 13-year-old girl’s dream… right?
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Don’t get me wrong. Kurt Cobain, with his soulful, heartbreaking voice and blue eyes — and the trendsetting fashion of our long-sleeved shirts under T-shirts with ripped jeans — was a big figure in middle school life in the ’90s. Coming into the Nirvana craze late in the game, our interest in him was an existential crisis. We didn’t understand mental health and we didn’t understand addiction. All we knew was that something went terribly wrong, something we didn’t see in our charmed suburban lives and that we could not process.
Let’s get back to 1996, though, which kicked off decades of the Foo Fighters in the Indianapolis.
April 1, 1996: Murat Centre Egyptian Room
Grohl wasn’t just “that guy from Nirvana.” He was “that guy from Scream,” a punk band two Midwestern middle school girls never would have heard of if not for Nirvana. My friend obsessively scoured used record stores (remember, we didn’t have Amazon), eventually finding tapes from when Grohl recorded with them. (“Gods Look Down” is still on most of my playlists.)
We became not Nirvana fans, but Foo Fighters fans and, more specifically, Dave fans. We stocked up on Mentos because we always had to have a roll with us to imitate Dave in the “Big Me” music video.
I kept the flyer for the first Indianapolis show, and it indicates tickets were $12.50 or $15 at the door. That we saw the Foo Fighters for that little, or that tickets would even be available at the door, is astounding.
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In the Egyptian Room at what was then the Murat, I slipped in a puddle of beer for the first time. I jumped in a tiny mosh pit. I watched a boy fall on his head trying to crowd surf. He was bleeding, was told by several of us, “Dude, you might have a concussion,” and jumped back in anyway. I watched my best friend’s brother almost fight another guy for a drumstick that had been thrown into the crowd. (He lost, because his mom was there.)
I loved every minute of it.
We got to hear a preview of “Up in Arms,” which would be on the next album. And we were mere feet from our favorite rock star. About 100 people filled the room, crowding the stage during an intimate performance that would stop being the norm for the group.
Other Foo Fighters appearances
My need to see the band again was stymied on their next tour for “The Colour and the Shape” in 1998. The Foo Fighters played at Deer Creek on May 20 with Ben Folds Five. It was on a school night.
In a sign of where the band was going. This was not a tiny show by a band the mainstream wasn’t into yet. This was a grown-up show at a major venue with a huge name.
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