In the three months since Dave Grohl's post-Nirvana band, Foo Fighters, made their Toronto debut, everything about them has gotten bigger.

Their debut album came out and immediately landed in the Top 30.

They've been written up in dozens of magazines, even though they haven't uttered a word to the press.

And they've graduated from opening act (for Mike Watt) to headliner.

So it's both perverse and completely understandable that Grohl went out of his way to keep things modest last night at a packed-and-then-some Phoenix.

Apart from the undersized venue - the show sold out the same day tickets went on sale - there was a decidedly self-conscious denial of anything even remotely resembling rock-star excess.

Appearing unannounced on stage at the stroke of 11, Grohl, lead guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Nate Mendel, and drummer William Goldsmith did their level best to keep things humble.

That meant no introduction, no fancy light show, and lots of neutral stage patter ("This song is called ...").

Hell, Grohl even made fun of one number, Oh, George, because it contained (gasp) a guitar solo.

But that was between songs. The second the music kicked in, it was a different story altogether.

From the first note of Winnebago, a song that isn't even on their album, through 10 of the 12 songs that do appear on the album, this was a big, beautiful, bona fide event.

Unlike their first visit, when Grohl's voice went AWOL due to a bad cold, last night the band slid effortlessly from a whisper (For The Cows, a strangely subdued X-Static) to a scream

(This Is A Call, I'll Stick Around, and virtually everything in between).

Even the non-album tracks (Podunk and Butterflies, along with the aforementioned Winnebago) drew huge cheers and set off non-stop moshing.

`BUMMER'

"The last time we played Toronto," Grohl said in a rare aside before introducing the band's usual set-closer, Exhausted, "we had kind of a bummer show ... So thanks a lot for coming out tonight."

That display of humility seemed both genuine and out of place.

In the end, the Foo Fighters' determinedly understated return turned out to be a big event after all - despite the best intentions of the Foo Fighters themselves.

SUN RATING: 4 OUT OF 5