authenticity and the foo fighters

I have a huge amount of respect for Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. He’s honest, authentic and a great businessman to boot.  He does what he wants to do and if it sells, hey, that’s a bonus. Any man and his band who can get a huge profile in the FT magazine needs to be taken seriously.

I saw Dave in action a few weeks ago at Milton Keynes; he was great and the crowd was good-naturedly boisterous; Dave played the mood brilliantly.

My respect has grown to stratospheric levels since I read of his handling of an aggressive trouble-maker during his gig at this week’s iTunes Festival. Here we should issue a warning – the video below contains some rather bad language…

Dave’s expletive-ridden outburst can’t be repeated in front of a family readership, but boy, here is a man who’s not afraid to take control and to say exactly what he thinks. You might not like the language, but you’ve got to admire his cojones!

Not only that, if you think about it, here is a man who understands branding implicitly. Whether consciously or not he’s created a very definite Foo Fighters experience. His outburst during the iTunes Festival was very much the act of a man protecting that brand and ensuring his audience were reminded of what the Foos stand for.