The Foo Fighters have just released their latest LP ‘Wasting Light’ and have continued on two worldwide treks in support of the album. This new resurgence follows a lengthy hiatus lasting from 2009-2011 where the band were relatively inactive following the release of 2007’s ‘Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace.’
Now it seems the Foo Fighters are going on another hiatus. Front man Dave Grohl announced, at the close of their latest tour, “This is it, man. We don’t have any shows after this. This is the show where we come out and we play as many songs as we can in a short period of time, because honestly, I don’t know when we’re going to do it again.”
Taking this too directly, you have the pining of an artist on his last legs. In the context of the high energy final date of the tour, you have a front man enthusing the crowd and building a climactic nature to the band’s final few minutes on stage for the foreseeable future.
Yet the media bit down. They announced the band’s indefinite hiatus, calling for official claims of a break-up. A spokesman for the group announced that “they are definitely not breaking up.”
Where in Grohl’s comments did we hear break-up? Why did the media lambaste this as a conclusion of the group?
It is not news, nor is it particularly newsworthy, that a band is taking a break after a massive tour and the release of their album. They SHOULD go on a hiatus. As a matter of fact, bands go on hiatus for about a year between every album release, and it isn’t always announced as an official hiatus. The term itself is flawed. If the members of a group are currently living in their own cities and not communicating daily, they are on a hiatus. Yet, it is rarely ever reported as such. It is just the natural in between time of recording that arises in modern society among grouped musicians.
Foo Fighters are taking a break- yes. As they damn well should. The term hiatus needs to be separate from the term for “taking a break.” On one hand, they are the same thing. On the other, they are reported almost entirely different (one as a borderline break-up, and the latter as, well, nothing).
The group is expected to return at some point. For now, they close the pages of their latest LP, bunker down, and contemplate the wide open future of 2013 and beyond. This too is not news- it is just everyday reality.
