How live performances have shaped Dave Grohl
Out of all modern performers, Dave Grohl is probably more committed to the act of playing live than anyone. In 2015, when he fell off stage and broke his foot, he decided to carry on playing whilst doctors came on and put his leg in a cast. He then continued touring with a large throne of rock so that he didn’t have to cancel future gigs. Grohl has always advocated for the live show, but that run of gigs confirmed him as one of the best and most committed live performers in the world.
“You have my promise right now,” he told the crowd after taking the tumble, “that the Foo Fighters, we’re gonna come back and finish this show.” He looks back on the memory and confirms that it “sucked”, adding, “But I was like, ‘Can I finish this? Then I have to fucking finish it!’”
There is something inherently beautiful about a gig. Having your favourite artist come to your home town, playing in a venue just down the road from the bar where you heard their music for the first time, stood in a room full of people who share an admiration for this sound, connected in that admiration, it’s almost hallelujah-like as arms go in the air and cheers ring out.
When asked about when they knew they wanted to make music, many musicians will refer to a specific live performance. That’s the power of a good gig; it doesn’t just invoke happiness for the time it’s happening but influences people’s lives.
“I met some kid at catering the other day,” recalled Dave Grohl in an interview, “he was in a band from Finland. He came up and said he started playing guitar because of us, which is the ultimate flattery… I know who my heroes are, and I’ve showered all of them with praise and blessing to their faces because I wouldn’t be the musician that I am if not for them.”
He is a musician who has been shaped by live performance, and that feeds into the energy packed into the music that both Nirvana and Foo Fighters made, but also in how much effort he puts into his live gigs. Whether selling out stadiums, doing multiple guest slots at Glastonbury or continuing to play gigs with broken bones, live shows are held close to his heart and are still one of the most important things to him today.
“The first show I ever saw, and the one that made me want to play in a band, was at a punk rock club in Chicago in 1983,” recalls Dave. It all happened because he was visiting relatives and was shocked to see that his older cousin, Tracy, was a punk. After only seeing them on TV, he knew he wanted to follow her around and go with her to the gig she was heading to that night.
“She was going to see a band at a club called The Cubby Bear,” he added. “It was this band Naked Raygun, and opening up for them that night was a band called Rights Of The Accused. I’d never seen a live band. I was in this small room with maybe 60 or 70 people spitting and stage-diving. And Naked Raygun, a band that was incredibly powerful but so simplistic and loud and noisy, yet at the same time clever and arty, just blew my mind.”
Grohl had been playing guitar for some years before this point but had only ever attempted covers with his band. He didn’t think he had the musical ability to produce original material. It was upon hearing punk music that he knew the kind of sound he wanted to try and achieve, and that new sense of clarity spurred him on to write music for himself and start gigging.
The first gigs he remembers playing were at backyard parties with his neighbourhood band, but a show from that time that sticks in his mind the most was one they did at a nursing home. “I think it was something we did for extra credit at school because all of the people in the band were my classmates,” he said. “We were fucking 12 or 13 years old. There’s a lot of jokes you could make about the audience being dead, but for us, it was fucking hilarious. We were playing to people that were in their 90s, y’know? And we played ‘Time Is On My Side’ [by The Rolling Stones] – we didn’t realise the comedy or irony in playing it.”
Playing in High School bands with friends is a good introduction to music. You are with people you get along with, trying to find a sound that will make you feel like the big rock ‘n roll stars you look up to at the time. However, whilst this might be a good way to edge you into the world of music, nothing ever prepares musicians for their first time gigging in a proper band. The first band Grohl toured with was Scream, for whom he played drums. He was 18 when he first went out on the road with them, and after that, he joined Nirvana.
His first Nirvana gig was at North Shore Surf Club, near where Grohl and Kurt Cobain lived. The plan was to do a small gig as a warm-up for a short run of England they were about to embark on. It was the first time people had queued to see Dave perform live, and it was an odd affirmation that he was doing the right thing in constantly pursuing the rush of music.
“We went in and sound-checked,” he explained. “I left to get something to eat, I came back, and there was a line around the block! I had never seen that at any gig that I had ever played. There were hundreds of people, and it fucking blew my mind. I remember calling my mother and saying, ‘Mom, there are at least 300 people in line right now!’”
From then on, it was nothing but up for Nirvana, and within two years, they would be headlining the Reading Festival, a gig that Grohl confesses changed him. “I grew up with it, so headlining was unbelievable.” The gig came at a chaotic time for the band. They had gone from being a small outfit in a van to one of the biggest names in the world, selling millions of records, touring all around the globe and with a lead singer in and out of rehab. The band ended up having to cancel runs of shows for their health, but in doing so, sparked rumours that they were also going to cancel their Reading headline set.
“I walked backstage, and some of my best friends in bands that were opening would see me and say, ‘What are you doing here?’… The show was a really reassuring, genuinely magical moment of everything coming together at the right time. I think we had practised once, the day before, and I just didn’t know if we could pull it off.” That ended up being the band’s last gig in England. “The memory is somewhat triumphant but melancholy because we never came back.”
After Nirvana, Dave started Foo Fighters, a band who had a rocky start but have since gone on to cement themselves as rock royalty. They have headlined that same stage at Reading, been supported by Grohl’s favourite band, Motorhead, and even played two nights at Wembley. “It was such an incredibly full circle moment for the band because none of us ever imagined that we would be there.”
These full-circle moments spur Grohl on, reminding him that he has one of the best jobs in the world and is lucky to get to play with so many people. It’s why a broken leg is now a minor inconvenience rather than a show-stopper. He knows how impactful a live gig can be; he has had to cancel gigs before, and he never wants to do that again. The live performance has shaped not only who he is as a musician but his whole life; as such, they reside at the forefront of his very being.
Grohl concluded: “It’s that kind of shit where I’m like, ‘This is just insane. This doesn’t make any fucking sense to me at all.’ I’ll take it. I’m not complaining, but really, there have been these moments where I just cannot believe it. I know I sold my soul to the Devil, I just hope he waits a while before he takes it!”
