Foo Fighters at Glastonbury: The Churn-Ups honour Taylor Hawkins
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You guys f**kin’ knew it was us, right?” gravelled a sweat-soaked Dave Grohl, halfway via Foo Fighters’ not-so-secret set on the Pyramid Stage.
Billed solely as The Churn-Ups on the road up, punters had been fast to select up on the considerable clues planted forward of this weekend; from Grohl pointedly referring to the thought of “churning up” feelings of grief and therapeutic in an emotional assertion, to the eagles hidden within the pageant’s poster by Radiohead collaborator Stanley Donwood. The eagle, after all, has grow to be a memorial image of types for the band’s late drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died final 12 months, and famously had an eagle tattoo as a nod to his surname.
Hawkins’ presence was strongly felt on the Foos’ first Glastonbury present since 2017, being again on that very same stage little question citing outdated reminiscences of headlining Worthy Farm with their beloved bandmate.
Crammed into an hour-long slot, Grohl was eager to pack in each punch doable, breathlessly transitioning between tracks with snippets of rock classics Enter Sandman (by Metallica) and Paranoid (by Black Sabbath) to maintain momentum excessive. “We’ve only got an hour… so we can’t stop,” he yelled, like a rock spin class teacher. “We gotta keep going!”
The band’s incoming drummer Josh Freese was met with big applause, whereas Grohl shared a joke with Chris Shiflett and launched him to the group. After Shiflett let rip with a quick howl of guitar, Grohl quipped: “Slash is watching! Give him something good”. Sure sufficient, Guns N’ Roses’ guitarist – who headlines the pageant with the band tomorrow – might be seen trying on. Beside him was Grohl’s daughter Violet, who later joined her dad on-stage for a efficiency of Show Me How, a tune Grohl wrote about his mom (and her grandmother’s) passing.
Though such poignant moments punctuated the set, there have been loads of hard-hitting classics from Foos sizeable again catalogue, together with field-wide singalongs for My Hero, The Pretender, Best of You, No Son of Mine, All My Life, and But Here We Are’s lead single Rescued.
Grohl gestured to the sky as he paid tribute to late bandmate Taylor Hawkins
/ Getty ImagesThen, proper on the finish, Grohl switched gears. “I’d like to dedicate this one to Taylor Hawkins, so lets sing it loud as shit,” Grohl stated forward of nearer Everlong, gesturing meaningfully in direction of the clear blue skies. “Sing it loud for T,” he urged, and the group duly obliged. The alternative was all of the extra significant on condition that it was the final tune Hawkins ever carried out dwell.
“I don’t like to say goodbye. I know that we’ll always come back. If you come back, we’ll come back,” Grohl stated, earlier than leaving the stage, echoing the precise phrases he instructed the group at Hawkins’ final gig. “Will you come back? If you come back, we’ll come back, so then I won’t have to say goodbye.” It was low-key, however poignant finish to a becoming tribute.