The 2007 show that gave Dave Grohl his greatest fear: “Are you fucking insane?”
Getting to the level that Foo Fighters have reached wasn’t lost on Dave Grohl.
If anyone else had the idea of the drummer for one of the greatest bands of the 1990s turning his own pet project into one of the biggest names in music, there’s a good chance they would have called you crazy before Grohl’s first record dropped. And while it did take him a long time to reach the same level as his favourite artists, he did have a handful of bands that sent a chill up his spine when thinking about playing with them.
Because as much as Grohl is a rock and roll god, he’s still human. He makes mistakes like the rest of us, and he’s more than likely able to have his screwups happen onstage in front of millions of people half the time he plays. He can usually brush that shit off half the time, but when you’re working with those massive festival crowds, it only takes that one wrong move for people to get the wrong idea and use you as personal target practice with anything they can find.
But Grohl didn’t normally need to worry about that by the time that Echoes Silence Patience and Grace came out. They had become headliner status almost everywhere, and if they could get away clean with making an entire side of an album that was nothing but acoustic tunes, they were bound to survive anything else that came their way as well. At the same time, playing with the heaviest bands of all time was definitely going to be a change of pace for them.
Grohl already had to deal with the real possibility of getting his ass kicked when touring for There Is Nothing Left to Lose. He was willing to go out there and play some of the sunniest tracks the band had ever made, but when looking at the audiences that he played when doing festivals with Pantera, he knew that there was always a chance that people were going to be getting a little bit pissed off if they heard one too many pop tunes.
It’s easier when it’s on a massive musical festival, but playing a show like Live Earth was going to do a number on anyone. Anything that stood in the shadow of Live Aid was going to have a bit more expectations, and while he was just happy to be there to carry on the festival message that bands like Queen had, the thought of going on right after Metallica was the kind of pressure that no one ever needs to endure.
The thrash titans were the ultimate road dogs, and Grohl remembered getting the shock of his life when he had to compete with them on the same festival, saying, “[My manager said] ‘I just need you to do one thing. I just need you to be better than Metallica.’ [I said] ‘Are you fucking insane? That’s impossible. That’s the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life…’” But the reason why Grohl didn’t melt into a pile of nerves right there on the spot was because of how different he and Metallica were as performers.
There isn’t a single show where James Hetfield didn’t look like one of the masters of the universe with a guitar in his hand, but Grohl was happy to be himself whenever he got onstage. Nothing in rock and roll is perfect, and if he managed to have a bunch of fun and treat that audience like they were a million friends coming together for a party, that was all he could hope for when he kicked off their signature tunes.
Grohl was the last to say that he could make something that was as awe-inspiring as ‘Master of Puppets’, but there was no shame in his being able to get millions of people to sing along to ‘Everlong’. The road can be absolutely cutthroat for most rock and roll bands, but Grohl could still find time to take everything in and play alongside some of the biggest names in rock and roll history.
