Tag: Dave Grohl

Taylor Hawkins’ teenage son played an emotional ‘My Hero’ tribute with Foo Fighters

This was incredible.

In their first performance since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters were joined by celebrities and musical guests in London Saturday to pay tribute to their bandmate and friend.

“Tonight we’ve gathered here to celebrate the life, the music, and the love of our dear friend, our bandmate, our brother, Taylor Hawkins,” Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl told the crowd at the start of the show. “For those of you who knew him personally, you knew that nobody else could make you smile or laugh or dance or sing like he could. For those of you who admired him from afar, I’m sure you’ve all felt the same thing.”

Though the tribute show was packed with superstar guests, it was Hawkins’ teenage son, Shane, who delivered one of the most stirring moments of the night as he joined his late father’s band onstage for a powerful performance of “My Hero”.

I’m crying, you’re crying, we’re all crying.

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Dave Grohl stands up for America’s teachers: “Teachers want to teach. Not die.”

“America’s teachers are caught in a trap, set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership,” Grohl wrote.

We’re in the middle of a very bitter, very fraught battle over whether or not public schools should reopen in the fall as the nation tries (and fails!) to contain the spread of the coronavirus.  From what we know, the disease spreads fastest in close quarters, making the reopening of schools a potentially deadly experiment.

Still, there are plenty of people, including state leaders and the White House, determined to return to “normalcy,” even at the cost of lives.  It’s a messy situation with no good options but what’s becoming increasingly clear is that in this debate, where zealous leadership has ignored scientific warnings for political gain, the voices of teachers and school workers are not being prioritized.

To help amplify their concerns, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, whose mother is retired school teacher, penned a passionate yet reasoned defense of teachers, arguing that that the health and safety of kids and teachers need to come first.

In his monthly column for The Atlantic, Grohl argued against opening schools back up come fall.

America’s teachers are caught in a trap, set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership that have never been in their position and can’t possibly relate to the unique challenges they face. I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class? Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are.”

Grohl also noted that remote schooling came with its own challenges, and pointed out just how ineffective his own style has been.

I know this because I have three children of my own, and my remote classroom was more Welcome Back, Kotter than Dead Poets Society. Like I tell my children, “You don’t really want daddy helping, unless you want to get an F!” Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution. But as much as Donald Trump’s conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country prematurely open schools in the name of rosy optics (ask a science teacher what they think about White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comment that “science should not stand in the way”), it would be foolish to do so at the expense of our children, teachers, and schools.

You can read his entire essay here.

Dave Grohl perfectly summed up why live music is so great and why we need it so much

Dave Grohl is a national treasure.

We’ve lived the past two months or so without a lot of great things that were once normal activities in our lives, including watching sports on television or at packed stadiums and arenas.

We’ve also lived these past two months without any concerts, which has been painful for a lot of people, including me because I had some great tickets to see one of my favorite bands (Pearl Jam) play what was supposed to be back-to-back shows in April at the Forum.

Concerts for me and just about everyone who enjoys seeing live shows are a place where the outside world goes away for a few hours as you jump up and down, rocking out to songs that mean a lot to you, have gotten you through things, and that are just fun to experience live with thousands of other people who feel the same way.

I’ve been lucky enough to see the Foo Fighters a few times over there years and if you’ve ever been to one of their shows you know lead singer Dave Grohl is a legend who knows how to make it a night you won’t forget.

Well, today Grohl published an column in The Atlantic in which he perfectly puts into words what concerts mean to him and fans of music and how much it hurts to not have them in our lives and how we have to hope that they are back to being a thing, safety permitting, some day soon.

It’s a great column and you should read it. This part jumped out to me the most:

Not to brag, but I think I’ve had the best seat in the house for 25 years. Because I dosee you. I see you pressed against the cold front rails. I see you air-drumming along to your favorite songs in the distant rafters. I see you lifted above the crowd and carried to the stage for a glorious swan dive back into its sweaty embrace. I see your homemade signs and your vintage T-shirts. I hear your laughter and your screams and I see your tears. I have seen you yawn (yeah, you), and I’ve watched you pass out drunk in your seat. I’ve seen you in hurricane-force winds, in 100-degree heat, in subzero temperatures. I have even seen some of you grow older and become parents, now with your children’s Day-Glo protective headphones bouncing on your shoulders. And each night when I tell our lighting engineer to “Light ’em up!,” I do so because I need that room to shrink, and to join with you as one under the harsh, fluorescent glow.

In today’s world of fear and unease and social distancing, it’s hard to imagine sharing experiences like these ever again. I don’t know when it will be safe to return to singing arm in arm at the top of our lungs, hearts racing, bodies moving, souls bursting with life. But I do know that we will do it again, because we have to. It’s not a choice. We’re human. We need moments that reassure us that we are not alone. That we are understood. That we are imperfect. And, most important, that we need each other. I have shared my music, my words, my life with the people who come to our shows. And they have shared their voices with me. Without that audience—that screaming, sweating audience—my songs would only be sound. But together, we are instruments in a sonic cathedral, one that we build together night after night. And one that we will surely build again.

Hell yeah, Dave Grohl.