The event was carried off with the secrecy of a CIA operation.
LAS alumnus Ken Feldman and his wife, Gayle Gordon, told 50 friends and relatives to show up at their home in the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains on a Monday afternoon in April of this year. Initially, the guests were given no other information. They were simply told, “This was going to be something cool, and you’re really going to regret it on Tuesday if you don’t come. Trust us.”
It wasn’t until three days before the event that most of the invited guests found out what was happening: The Foo Fighters, one of the biggest bands in the world, were going to play a private concert in Feldman and Gordon’s garage. The 50 guests would be the entire audience.
“Gayle put it best when she said it was surreal; it was like being in a Fellini movie,” says Feldman, a 1980 graduate in geology from the University of Illinois.
The surreal adventure all began when Gordon just happened to hear on the radio that the Foo Fighters were having a contest to select eight North American locations where they would play in fans’ garages. Feldman and Gordon’s submission had to say, in 25 words or less, why the Foo Fighters, a major alternative rock band, should come to their garage to perform.
Their 17 magic words were simple: “The Rocky Mountains. Fabulous views. Fresh mountain air. Amazing acoustics. Homemade snacks for the band and crew.”
They also had to submit a photo of their garage, and Feldman says it helped that they added text to their photo, identifying such features as: “snack access, VIP area, and the Rocky Mountains—really can you beat this?” An arrow points to the mountain towering just behind their home near Denver.
Feldman and Gordon were allowed to invite 50 guests, but with one important stipulation. If any of the guests leaked news of the event, the Foo Fighters reserved the right to back out. According to Gordon, an email from the logistics coordinator to the invited guests warned, “Don’t tell anyone what’s going on or we’ll have to cancel, and Gayle and Ken will hate you for the rest of your lives.”
Come Monday, the secret was safe, but days of rain caused the only glitch. The Foo Fighters were afraid that the truck pulling their equipment would get stuck in the mud on the gravel road leading up to the house, so they had to make a last-minute switch to the backup location—a party barn just behind Oscar’s Bar in nearby Lyons, Colo.
“We wanted the band members to sign our garage, so it was disappointing. But we understood,” Feldman says.
Before the concert started at 4 p.m. on Monday, April 25, Feldman and his wife were given the VIP treatment, hanging out ahead of time with the band and chatting at Oscar’s Bar with lead singer Dave Grohl.
“They were the nicest guys,” Feldman says. “No big-head rock stars, just regular guys talking about their kids.”
While they were hanging out, Grohl explained the motivation for the contest. The Foo Fighters were going back to their roots, having just recorded their latest album the old-fashioned way—in Grohl’s garage using analog tape and no digital tricks. Inspired by recording in a garage, Grohl came up with the idea of performing private concerts in the garages of fans.
According to Feldman, “Dave said they could do an 80,000-person concert in Wembley Stadium, but what they really love is being right there with the fans.”
“Being right there with the fans” is right. There was no stage, as the Foo Fighters performed only a few feet away from the audience. Grohl, the band’s frontman and former drummer for Nirvana, interacted with the crowd, often plunging into the audience, even letting one guest play the guitar during a song. At the end of the concert, the band mingled with the guests, signing autographs, taking pictures, and chatting before Grohl, Gordon, Feldman, and some lucky guests did a few Tequila shots together at the bar.
Feldman majored in geology at Illinois, but he has shown an equal proficiency in winning contests. In 1997, he won a contest in which he was rewarded with the chance to serve on the crew of an old-fashioned tall ship in a two-week race on the North Sea from Scotland to Norway.
With the excitement of their latest contest victory now behind them, he joked, “The people who attended the concert are eternally grateful and know that they owe us forever. They also know that if we ever tell them to be somewhere on a certain day, don’t ask questions. Just be there.”
