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Foo Fighters have marked a triumphant return, releasing their 12th studio album, Your Favorite Toy, last week and delivering an electrifying performance during a secret show at Manhattan's Irving Plaza.

The new record, which “feels like a back-to-basics blast of fresh air, with Grohl using these songs to face up to himself” as noted by The Independent’s Roisin O'Connor is expected to top album charts around the world.

Playing to a capacity crowd of just 1,000 at the much smaller venue, the band brought a "sonic immediacy" that belied their stadium-filling reputation.

This resurgence follows a tumultuous two-year period for the band. Two years prior, a sold-out show at Citi Field in Queens, with nearly 42,000 fans, was abruptly cut short by a torrential downpour and lightning, an ominous precursor to what lay ahead.

The subsequent years saw frontman Dave Grohl announce he had fathered a child outside his marriage in 2024, followed by the departure of drummer Josh Freese in 2025 after just one tour, with Ilan Rubin stepping in two months later.

However, with Your Favorite Toy and their powerful return to the stage, it appears the band has firmly turned a corner, reclaiming their status with renewed vigour.

A secret show for a lucky few

Foo Fighters announced two surprise shows Wednesday: one at Irving Plaza on Thursday and another at the Starland Ballroom on Saturday in New Jersey.

Tickets were priced at $30, limited to two per purchaser and available only on a first-come, first-served basis at 10am on Thursday at each venue.

Some fans camped overnight. Others lined up long before 10am. The lucky few able to grab tickets to the Irving Plaza show night wore vintage Foo Fighters merchandise into the venue and bought new designs.

They swapped stories about the last time they saw the band and theorized about how they would perform on such a small stage.

When the Foo Fighters emerged, it was six minutes after 8 p.m. “How ya doing?” energetic front man Dave Grohl said in greeting the crowd, promising a lot of new tracks and some “old school.”

And the band delivered: 2002's “All My Life” and “Times Like These” were next to late '90s hits like “Monkey Wrench” and “My Hero,” and week-old songs “Spit Shine” and “My Favorite Toy.”

“Sometimes I ask the audience if they love rock ‘n’ roll music,” Grohl told the crowd. “I'm not gonna ask you all because I know you love rock ‘n’ roll music.”

Even if the location was stripped down, the band had no interest in a minimized show.

Foo Fighters during their surprise show at Irving Plaza on Thursday ( @AndrewHarts/X )

There were no pyrotechnics or fireworks or fanfare, sure, but surprises abounded: “Window,” a new song, got its live debut.

The band opened a five-song encore with “A320,” its contribution to the oft-overlooked 1998 Godzilla soundtrack.

At one moment a concertgoer shouted, “Taylor Hawkins forever!” in memory of the band's late drummer. Grohl instinctively responded, “That's right!”

“For those who've never seen us before,” Grohl said two and a half hours into the set, “next time we'll try to make it feel like this.”

Of course next time is likely to be in a venue 40 times the size of Irving Plaza. It gave the still-buzzing crowd something to think about as they exited into a rainy April night.

Foo Fighters set list at Irving Plaza

Winnebago All My Life Times Like These Caught in the Echo Of All People Stacked Actors La Dee Da The Pretender My Hero Learn to Fly Window This Is a Call No Son of Mine (with Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" snippet) Your Favorite Toy These Days Walk Aurora Monkey Wrench Hey, Johnny Park! Best of You

Encore: