“Forever indebted”: The Foo Fighters cover that made Dave Grohl cry “like a f**king baby”
Despite his gruff singing, thundering drums, and ‘beer-appreciators’ goatee, Dave Grohl is the sort of guy who could cry over a Cadbury’s advert.
Beneath their brooding heaviness, that emotional vulnerability has always underpinned his work with the Foo Fighters. After all, the band were born simply as a bid to overcome the grief that Grohl felt following the passing of his former Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain.
Stretching back beyond that, the multi-instrumentalist always found solace in music. He knew it could move you and change your worldview. As Far Out Magazine found when we recently spoke with his daughter, Violet Grohl. “We always drive around and just play music and talk to each other about it,” she recalled. “I play some stuff maybe he’s never heard before, he’ll play stuff I’ve never heard before.”
On one pivotal occasion, he would reveal something profound. “He was like, ‘Have you ever listened to Jeff Buckley?’ And I was like, ‘No, but I’ve had people tell me that I should’,” Violet recalled. Her dad looked at her and said, “I’m gonna play this for you, and it’s gonna change your life”. It did, and Dave already knew it. You see, sometimes he might get hyperbolic, but that’s merely a reflection of how much music means to him.
And within the world of music, few things mean more than Glastonbury. The festival is the sort of escapist utopia that he envisioned when he set up the Foo Fighters. He goes most years, even just as a punter (always sparking rumours of a surprise appearance in the process). So, in 2015, when he had to pull out with a broken leg, he was crestfallen.
Thankfully, when Florence + The Machine stepped in, he was soon graced with a silver lining. “I was totally looking forward to playing with them at Glastonbury,” he told Q Magazine shortly afterwards. “When we cancelled and they were searching for a replacement I prayed they’d just move them to the top of the bill because they fucking deserve to be there.”
That’s exactly what the organisers ended up doing. “I emailed Florence [Welch] to congratulate her. She gave me great advice for healing broken bones [Florence broke her foot onstage at Coachella recently] and said they were going to cover ‘Times Like These’,” Grohl recalled.
The anthemic song is tailor-made for the festival, and Florence + The Machine’s blistering cover provided Glastonbury 2015 with one of its most iconic moments. “The day after the gig, someone sent me a link to the performance, and I cried like a fucking baby,” Grohl added.
Concluding, “It melted my fucking heart. I am forever indebted to them. It meant so much, you have no idea.” Even for him, that’s high praise. But in some ways, it represented a legacy moment for his band.
The influence of the Foos was clearly displayed by the next generation with this shimmering cover, and given the turmoil that spawned the band, the journey from there to the defiant performance by Flo pretty much embodied the meaning behind the band’s signature song. Who wouldn’t be moved by that?
