The Foo Fighters just wrapped a run of North American stadium gigs on their Take Cover tour and, in classic Foo fashion, no downtime is good time. So they’ve just agreed to hop onto another massive tour for one night only for a gig that will fulfill a childhood dream for band leader Dave Grohl. The band announced on Thursday (Aug. 20) that they will be special guests at their heroes AC/DC‘s Sept. 8 show at the 67,000-capacity The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis.
They will be filling in for the Taylor Momsen-led The Pretty Reckless, who’ve been opening for the legendary Australian rockers on their current North American stadium tour; at press time a spokesperson for the Pretty Reckless had not returned Billboard‘s request for information on why the band is not performing in their previously announced opening slot at the St. Louis stop.
In a lengthy Instagram post announcing the news, Grohl reminisced about discovering AC/DC’s primal power and the absolute honor it will be for him to open for his rock Rushmore. “I remember it like it was yesterday…. It was AC/DC’s 1980 concert film Let There Be Rock that truly introduced me to the raw, primal power of rock and roll performance for the first time,” he wrote. “Sure, I had Beatles records, I had Kiss posters, I had an old, broken acoustic guitar with a few strings that I would pretend to play in front of the hallway closet mirror when no one was home, but it wasn’t until that fateful night at the tender age of eleven years old that my best friend, Larry Hinkle and I went downtown to the Uptown theater in Washington D.C. and actually witnessed it on full display.”
He continued, describing the impact that movie had on him. “Watching from the edge of my seat the entire time, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. How could five human beings conjure and possess such intensity onstage with just their instruments, and do so with such swagger, such groove….and such danger? My mind was blown. Melted. Changed forever. And my heart felt like it might explode with passion and inspiration.
“From that night on, the bar was set exceptionally high. If you were a drummer and you didn’t have to change your snare drum between songs from pummeling it to splinters, you weren’t hitting it hard enough. If you were a guitarist and you didn’t need oxygen on the side of the stage between solos, you weren’t playing hard enough. If you were a frontman in a band and you weren’t drenched in sweat by the end of the show, you weren’t giving the audience what they deserve (All of these moments can be witnessed in this legendary film). It’s safe to say that If it weren’t for this movie, this band, and their decades of timeless anthems, I surely would have approached my life in music from a different perspective. So, if you have ever seen me beat the living s–t out of a drum set, or run from side to side of a stage drenched in sweat after hours of hammering my guitar to pieces, you’ll now understand why. All I have ever wanted was to someday live up to the awe inspiring fury of AD/DC, live onstage (an impossible task, by the way).”
More than 45 years after that fateful day, Grohl will finally share the stage with the “Thunderstruck” band, and it’s safe to say he’s a bit excited. “And now, for the first time since that fateful night in 1980, my band Foo Fighters will share a stage with the gentlemen who are single handedly responsible for my determination to give every audience everything I have, every night,” Grohl enthused. “This is literally a dream come true. So…..if you want blood….you’ve got it. Let there be f–king rock, St Louis. See you September 8th.”
The timing works out for the Dave Grohl-fronted band, as they just wrapped up their own stadium run with an epic, three-hour marathon show in the singer’s childhood area with Monday’s (Aug. 17) gig at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. The road dog rockers have a few days off before their next gig on Saturday (Aug. 22) at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where they will take part in the first of three special events celebrating Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel on a bill that also includes YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), Eduardo Betancourt, Jorge Glem and Moisés Torrealba.
The one-off gig with AC/DC will take place just days after the Foos headline at Rock in Rio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Sept. 4, after which the band will get back to their North American stadium run with a gig at the Fargodome in Fargo, N.D. on Sept. 12.
