Entertainment

Hammerstein hosts Sound City Players all-star revue

“This is going to be a long . . . night,” Foo Fighters leader and Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl told the audience at the outset of his live all-star revue, Sound City Players, at Hammerstein Ballroom last night. “But you guys knew that, right?”

Well, the lineup indicated it, yes. Leading a rotating lineup of players he’s worked with throughout his career — including Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and guitarist Pat Smear, and Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins — Grohl joked frequently and brought out a number of seemingly disparate rock legends (Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty) and cult favorites (Lee Ving of old punks Fear) to play a handful each of their best-loved classics.

The connecting thread: each recorded at the legendary LA recording studio Sound City, where Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” and dozens of other hit albums were made.

The audience stirred during opening sets by Alain Johannes (with whom Grohl played in Them Crooked Vultures) and Chris Goss; Lee Ving of Fear was punchier, though neither his material nor his voice have much improved with time.

Things kicked into gear, though, when Novoselic and Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen joined for a set of the latter band’s hits — sung, with surprising vigor, by bare-chested, surf-shorts-wearing drummer Hawkins. Grohl took the drums, making me wish he could’ve stayed behind them as he pounded out “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender,” and Nielsen’s offhandedly funny showmanship offered a clue to Grohl’s own stage persona.

The most unusual name on the bill was ’80s TV and music Rick Springfield — who turned in one of the night’s fieriest performances. Introducing the classic “Jessie’s Girl,” Grohl noted, “This man wrote a song that everybody knows from the first three notes,” then turned to the former soap icon: “Teach me, Rick, teach me!”

Grohl could learn more from John Fogerty, whose Creedence Clearwater Revival-heavy mini-set shredded top to bottom: “Proud Mary” and “Bad Moon Rising” remain bracingly taut.

Stevie Nicks, in trademark black chiffon, was the logical closer. She debuted a new song co-written with Grohl (ehh) — one of the few nods to the new in a shamelessly nostalgic evening. But a more apt note was struck when Grohl plucked an acoustic guitar to accompany Nicks’ Fleetwood Mac classic “Landslide” and the graying audience sang along to the lines, “Children get older/I’m getting older, too.”