Taylor Hawkins on the best live band of all time
Every decent rock and roll band understands the power of delivering their music to the people whenever they get on stage. As much as it may be fun to explore the studio environment or reinvent the way to give music to people, it doesn’t get any better than engaging with the crowd whenever you step out on a stage, delivering letter-perfect rock and roll to anyone within earshot. Although Foo Fighters had become one of the biggest stadium attractions by the 2000s, Taylor Hawkins thought one band stood alone regarding audience interaction.
Upon first glance, though, Hawkins was always a child of the stage. Even before he had joined Dave Grohl and the rest of the band after recording the album The Colour and the Shape, Hawkins had been smashing all of his competition in Alanis Morrissette’s touring band, bringing a sense of power behind pop songs like ‘Ironic’ and ‘You Oughta Know’.
Once he joined a major rock band, though, Hawkins could fly whenever he got behind the kit. Although he may have played the same drum fills that Grohl had done on the record, Hawkins quickly slid into the drummer’s slot easily, developing an almost telepathic relationship with the frontman regarding where the root accents should be.
Before Hawkins had even picked up a drum, he was already a fan of loud rock music. From the swinging sounds of Led Zeppelin to the tight musicianship of Rush, Hawkins was willing to listen to anything that had a sense of power and a strong backbeat behind it until he came face to face with Queen for the first time.
Although the rock monarchs were heralded as musical geniuses when they went into the studio, they did their damage onstage whenever they played, with Freddie Mercury belting to the rafters at every opportunity. By the time Hawkins first laid eyes on them when he was a kid, he knew that nothing that he saw on that stage was going to be equalled.
When talking about his experience seeing the band live, Hawkins told the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “As a live band, Queen kind of kicked everybody’s ass. Queen were my first concert, and every concert ever since has been a bit of a letdown. They were raw yet tight, huge yet intimate, two of the best hours of my life”.
In terms of raw power, Queen’s performance at Live Aid is a testament to the power that Hawkins was talking about. Throughout their small timeslot, Mercury held Wembley Stadium in the palm of his hand as he worked his way through a practical greatest-hits setlist, only taking breaks to give the audience the vocal performance of a lifetime during his various vocal exercises.
Hawkins would also consider Live Aid as a particular highlight of rock history, explaining, “Their legendary performance at Live Aid in 1985 with no lights, no soundcheck, no frills and only 20 minutes onstage showed the world how to turn a massive stadium into a tiny sweaty club”. Although Foo Fighters may still be able to fill stadiums with that same energy since Hawkins’s passing, they know that they will always be living in the shadow of what Queen had created.
