Foo Fighters (Hummingbird Centre, August 23)

No matter how many killer rock songs he's cranked out this millennium, and there have been quite a few, Dave Grohl remains very much a product of the '90s. So count on the Foo Fighters frontman to revive one of that decade's signature music trends.

More or less every act that was big in the first half of the '90s, or had been at some point before then, has its edition of MTV Unplugged to show for it. The concept was pretty simple: Bring a band in under the guise of stripping it down - then attach as many keyboards, percussionists and horn sections as possible to give it a sense of gravitas.

Sadly, the Foo Fighters took off just a little too late; all Grohl has to remember is his appearance behind the drum kit for Nirvana. It was that relatively understated performance, released as an album after Kurt Cobain's death, that more than any other gave Unplugged a place in the history books. But since we mostly remember Cobain strumming All Apologies or The Man Who Sold the World, not whatever his bandmates were doing, it's only reasonable that Grohl would want to celebrate his subsequent band's massive success with a showcase of his own.

And so we wound up with the normally austere Hummingbird Centre packed to the rafters with beer-guzzling twentysomethings in concert T-shirts, looking more than a little out of place as ushers politely guided them to their seats. To set the mood, they were treated to a beautifully restrained opening set by Frank Black, the legendary Pixie cutting an imposing figure alone on stage (save for brief, ill-advised accordian accompaniment) and benefitting from some terrific acoustics as he motored through his solo material. But then restraint went out the window, and it was the '90s all over again.

Grohl might have hit the stage by himself, but he didn't stay that way long. By the end of Razor, the set's first song, he'd been joined not only by his three regular bandmates but keyboardist Rami Jaffee, percussionist Drew Hester and vocalist/violinist/mandolin player Petra Hayden. And just to top things off, as a (possibly unintentional) nod to the old days, former Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear - right there with Cobain, Grohl and Krist Novoselic on Unplugged - was along for the ride.

This all could have been enormously pretentious, especially for a meat-and-potatoes band that doesn't exactly have a catalogue bursting with epics in need of dramatic new arrangements. But saving it from that fate was Grohl himself - possibly the least self-important rock star out there.

Far from being thrown off by the contingent of well-refreshed fans shouting out songs he had no intention of playing, Grohl responded with cheerful banter. And infectious as ever, his good humour spread beyond his usual bandmates to the additional players - Hayden giggling her way through a chunk of the proceedings, and Hester drawing some decent laughs with a brief and seemingly impromptu dance effort.

Verbose in any setting, Grohl was all the more so here - his introductions to songs worth the price of admission, especially when it came to a particularly entertaining tale of backing up Iggy Pop in Toronto during his pre-Nirvana days.

Musically, it was a bit more of a mixed bag. Though a perfectly good arena singer, Grohl - unlike Black - doesn't quite have the pipes to make full use of the Hummingbird's acoustics. When he generously handed the reins to Hester on Floaty, a track he sang on the Foos' debut, she delivered the set's best vocal performance.

Ironically, the weakest Grohl-fronted efforts came on songs off of last year's In Your Honor - the half-acoustic double-album that inspired the unplugged tour. Much better were earlier hits - Big Me, My Hero, Times Like These and reliable closer Everlong - that benefitted from the added gravitas. And tellingly, it was when he abandoned his newly understated vocals for his familiar throaty screams on Best of You that he was at his most compelling - a reminder that, like his audience, he was otherwise slightly out of his element.

Then again, so were many of those artists who plunked themselves down for MTV last decade. Only the most cold-hearted would deny one of rock's genuinely nice guys his turn - especially when he's so keen to share his happiness with the rest of us.