“One of the greatest nights of my entire life”: the icon who silenced Dave Grohl
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is not a man who’s shy about his fandom.
It feels like he’s forever pinching himself as he rubs shoulders with his heroes and bedroom poster bands of his youth, speaking candidly of the surreal sight of stepping behind the drum kit for the likes of Killing Joke or Them Crooked Vultures with John Paul Jones, as well as speaking of the “honour” of jamming with the likes of Prince and Paul McCartney.
As ever, it’s easy to imagine ‘rock’s nicest guy’ forever counting ‘greatest nights of his life’ as he wanders rock’s backstages, studios, and green rooms with an undimmed musical energy still aflame since his teens. It turned out that one massive band had always eluded him, a mammoth name of rock royalty that Grohl credits with “changing his life”.
The starstruck encounter took place on the night of February 8th, 2015. Grohl signed up to form one of the many presenters of the 57th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, introducing Beck and Chris Martin’s acoustic rendition of the former’s ‘Heart Is a Drum’.
As it happened, old ‘Cut Me Some Slack’ jammer and old Beatle McCartney happened to be in town, suggesting he and his wife Nancy meet up for dinner along with Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins and Pat Smear.
However, a chance crossing of paths with a certain duckwalking, schoolboy-suited hard rock outfit prompted Nancy to phone Grohl’s wife Jordyn ahead and ensure some extra chairs at the table for the surprise new guests.
Introduced by LL Cool J and opening the Grammy Awards ceremony at the Staples Centre, Aussie hard rock royalty AC/DC treated the audience to two numbers in their heavy repertoire, the recent ‘Rock or Bust’ from their namesake album being promoted, coupled with a blast of 1979’s ‘Highway to Hell’ classic. While the show went down a storm, founding guitarist Malcolm Young was poignantly absent, replaced by his nephew Stevie due to ongoing dementia issues.
“When I was maybe – I don’t know – ten years old, I went to see that movie Let There Be Rock, live concert film, in a movie theatre,” Grohl recalled to Tiny TV on AC/DC’s feature’s impact at the little Washington DC cinema he visited at the time. “This is before I was punk rock. That was the first time I saw a performance and heard music that made me wanna fucking break something. And still to this day, I use that as reference for how I like to play a show. I wanna be like AC/DC… Let There Be Rock. That’s a live band.”
Sure enough, McCartney arrived with AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson and lead guitarist Angus Young, dining and dancing in an LA club to live jazz, whether Young was donning a school blazer and knee-high socks is unclear. Still, Grohl called the evening “one of the greatest nights of my entire life,” adding another anecdote of hobnobbing with his hard rock heroes that may well have trumped them all.
