Eight years ago, Dave Grohl laid out his famous sense of goodwill and musical brotherhood in the Guardian. If the Foo Fighters were playing a festival, he said, he made a point of going through the dressing rooms of the other artists, bottle of whiskey in hand. “I don’t give a shit,” he said, “you could be Demi Lovato or the fucking Pantera drummer, I don’t give a shit, let’s have a drink.”
Clearly, this is an attitude Grohl shared with late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. How else to explain the bill at the first of two tribute concerts organized following his death in March? It veers wildly, offering folk pop alongside complicated prog rock, metal alongside Britpop.
Mark Ronson plays a wonderful acoustic version of Valerie with Grohl’s daughter Violet on vocals. Then comes a video message from Billie Eilish, followed by AC/DC’s Brian Johnson singing Back in Black and Let There Be Rock with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich on drums. The surviving members of Rush perform the gnarly instrumental YYZ in a setting that previously saw Nile Rodgers belting out David Bowie’s Let’s Dance with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme on vocals. Kesha delivers a killer cover of T Rex’s Children of the Revolution (her polite “thank you” at the end is so at odds with the rawness of her performance that it’s met with laughter) and Supergrass bars through Alright. It seems Hawkins loved them all.
Kesha performing at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert. Photo: Kevin Mazur/MBC/PA
It’s a curious and curiously entertaining bombardment of music, with Grohl as the connecting factor. He appears so often, in so many roles: playing bass with the Pretenders, and with Wolfgang Van Halen and Justin Hawkins of the Darkness playing Hot for Teacher; providing vocals for a cover of The Police’s Next to You with Stewart Copeland on drums; that you won’t be surprised that he appeared behind the counter at one of the food stands, handing out nachos.
It occasionally provides an object lesson in how the musical tastes and cultural contributions of American alt-rockers differ from those of their British fans. The audience seems gleefully bemused by the appearance of Hawkins’ all-time favorite group, the James Gang, who have reformed especially for the occasion. The 1960s and 1970s power trio featured Joe Walsh, who would join the Eagles, but audiences give the impression they’ve never heard their proto-metal boogie rock. Augmented by Grohl on drums, his hit Funk #49 sounds fantastic.
Sam Ryder with Queen’s Brian May. Photo: Kevin Mazur/MBC/PA
The audience is on safer ground with the surviving members of Queen, the first band Hawkins ever saw live. There’s no sign of current vocalist Adam Lambert: instead, Eurovision star Sam Ryder, a late addition to the bill according to Grohl, delivers such a masterful version of Somebody to Love that you’d rather imagine Lambert he goes home, frantically scanning the terms of his contract. .
It ends with a set from the Foo Fighters themselves, augmented by a succession of special guests: drummers like Blink-182’s Travis Barker, 12-year-old Internet sensation Nandi Bushell and Hawkins’ 16-year-old son Shane; Paul McCartney, who duets with Chrissie Hynde on a version of Oh! Darling and rips his way through Helter Skelter.
But despite all the supporting star power assembled, it’s hard to take your eyes off Grohl, who looks like he’s struggling. His voice cracks as he sings the intro to Times Like These and he walks away from the mic, the crowd filling him in, before wiping his eyes and huddling Dave Grohl-style: “Let’s go.” bellow “sons of a bitch”. It’s an emotional shift that occurs during his performance, ranging from overwhelming sadness to catharsis. Of course, there’s a strange energy to These Days, in which the audience picks up the refrain of “it’s okay” before Grohl chimes in again: “It’s easy for you to say it’s okay,” he howls.
He ends the show performing Everlong alone. The crowd sings and intermittently beats along, as people tend to do at big stadium concerts, but again, there’s a strange emotional charge, as if the crowd is urging Grohl on, readying him to get over it, which he does. Then the entire odd cast of the day takes the stage together, leaving you in no doubt that Hawkins will be sorely missed.