Here are some highlights from today’s star-studded 6-hour Taylor Hawkins tribute concert
Paul McCartney, Brian May, Dave Chappelle, the Foo Fighters, and many more came together to pay tribute to Hawkins today
Aux News Taylor Hawkins
The surviving members of the Foo Fighters—joined by a huge number of other big-name musicians—assembled at Wembley Stadium in London earlier today for a concert. Said show was the first of two planned tribute concerts in honor of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died back in March. It was, to put not-too-fine a point on it, a massive and star-studded affair: In addition to Dave Grohl and the other members of the Foo Fighters—playing together publicly for the first time since Hawkins’ death—the setlist also included appearances from Dave Chappelle, Josh Homme, John Paul Jones, Liam Gallagher, Kesha, Nile Rodgers, The Pretenders, Krist Novoselic, Lars Ulrich, Roger Taylor, Brian May, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Brian Johnson, Stewart Copeland, Nandi Bushell, Paul McCartney, and more.
Although the whole event ran for six hours today—encompassing something like 50 songs in its setlist—we’ve picked out a few highlights from the day, which blended together heartfelt feeling with powerful musicianship, as many of Hawkins’ favorite performers came together with his bandmates to pay tribute.
For instance: Liam Gallagher, helping to open the show with a version of Oasis’ “Life Forever”.
Later on, Homme, Jones, and Grohl reunited their supergroup Them Crooked Vultures for their first time in 12 years:
Members of two of Hawkins’ biggest influences, Queen and Rush, also took the stage to pay tribute:
And here’s McCartney and Chrissie Hynde performing together for The Beatles’ “Oh Darling!”
The most emotional moments of the night, not surprisingly, came from the set by the Foo Fighters themselves, who brought in a rotating set of drummers to pay tribute to Hawkins. That included Josh Freese, Travis Barker, Rufus Taylor, and, yes, Bushell, who powered mightily through a version of the band’s “Learn To Fly.”
The final drummer of the evening was Hawkins’ 16-year-old son, Shane Hawkins, playing on the bands’ “My Hero.” Which, yeah: Hard to stay dry-eyed for that one.
Grohl finished the show with one final solo offering—for a definition of “solo” that includes an entire arena of people singing along—to the man he frequently referred to as his brother: An acoustic version of “Everlong”:
The second Taylor Hawkins tribute concert is scheduled for September 27 in California.
45 Comments
And in honor of the death of a great, charitable, and wonderful man, here’s a loose five on how trans people are mean to me!
How did I know that THIS would be the first takeaway here at the AV Club?
Because Dave Chapelle is an unfunny bigot and should be called out for that fact?
I mean, WTF is Chappelle doing there?
He became good friends with Foo Fighters and especially Taylor after they were on the same SNL episode. He was convinced to do a shaky cover of Creep at a huge Foo Fighters concert when they started doing karaoke with each other.
You’re uninteresting
A nice piece. One big question: how is that last bit “acoustic”? It’s clearly an electric guitar. Come on, AV Club. This kind of mistake didn’t happen when you were still in Chicago.
Reminds me of the hospitals and clinics in my area. They pay the receptionists and some of the nurses shit so these employees feel they can treat patients like shit as a messed-up form of compensation. The higher-ups let them get away with it. It’s what I call a “Fuck You Job.”
Remember when the AV Club not-so-subtly tried to insinuate that Dave Grohl was somehow responsible for Hawkins’ death?
Remember when the comment scetion wasn’t full of people trying to shit on the AV Club every chance they get?
It’s every Kinja site lately. Ever since they started mass-greying away long time commenters and bleeding old writers, a lot of the comment base moved on and now every comments section is infested with haters and trolls.
Well, it’s hard to blame some of the haters—at least the ones languishing in the greys. I’ve been reading the AV Club since at least 2000, or whenever it came online (thanks to The Onion). Unfortunately, I just had to start a new Kinja account. I calculate the odds of making it out of the greys at about…3 percent or so, maybe less. I feel like this newest version of the AV Club doesn’t really care about its commentariat and is not really interested in ungreying anyone. It’s possible the new writers don’t even know how to ungrey someone! So yeah, considering how unengaged the new AV Club is with its readership, it’s no wonder people nitpick the hell out of every article. Why not? The website isn’t a labor of love anymore; it’s a venture capitalist-backed content farm.
Well I can bring this comment out of the greys for you, hopefully a writer sees it. I’m in the same situation with Jalopnik. That was my main Kinja site for years and I was a pretty well known commenter before a mass greying that I’ve never been able to come back from. Somehow, I’m still approved here though.I wouldn’t necessarily blame the writers, though. From my experience, they’re usually as frustrated with Kinja as we are. And as new employees join on and only see attacks against them in the comments, it probably becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where they don’t want to engage with comments for that reason.
Thanks. And I suppose you’re right. I don’t have anything against the new writers and the constant stream of negativity in the comments must be discouraging. Feedback is one thing, but constantly comparing the new people to the old guard is not very helpful. They’re keeping the site alive; that’s a good thing even if you don’t like their writing styles or choice of content. It’s just sad that in the last few years—even after the Kinjapocalypse—the commenting community has continued to dwindle and no one on the site seems all that concerned about it. There are people constantly coming on in the greys, and approval is…sporadic at best. There’s no procedure or process by which someone can be approved beyond what appears to be writer fiat. And people sometimes get shadowbanned for petty reasons. I had an approved account that got greyed because I disagreed with a new writer’s musical tastes. That’s Something Awful levels of moderating pettiness. But whatever, I’m trying again. But some people would, and probably do, just stop visiting the site. This community can keep growing and become lively again, with more than a handful of regulars making comments. It’s up to the people who move commenters from the grey to the black. Writers, site administrators, whatever. But if they don’t care or don’t want to, then the community will die and the AV Club will really be just another content farm. And that would suck.
That’s because the AV Club wasn’t as shithouse back then.
Don’t blame the writers, blame the venture capitalists who insist on ruining everything they touch in the name of profit.
They deserve every bit of it and more.
Why don’t you just leave like everyone else did? You can’t honestly believe that constantly shitting on the site in their comments is going to change anything for the better. Just leave. Nobody is forcing you to log onto the site. Just go. It’s easy
I’ve been a loyal reader since the late 90s, and the AV Club’s descent from world class pop culture coverage to lazy, incompetent outrage clickbait has been fascinating to me – kind of a reflection of what the internet has done to journalism/criticism in general. It’s like watching a loved one slowly die of cancer – I’ll stay by their bedside even though I hardly recognize them anymore, but it’ll be better for both of us when they finally pull the plug.
AV Club only reported about an article in Rolling Stone, IIRC. And that article was based mainly on quotes from Chad Smith of RHCP, and Matt Cameron of Pearl Jam. I think both of them later sorta denied what was quoted – but with a cliched “it was taken out of context” excuse, so, not really denied.Anyhow, “Dave Grohl is devastated and misses his late friend badly” and “Dave Grohl is partially responsible for his late friend death” are not mutually exclusive.
Respect to Shane Hawkins. My Hero can be a tough song. It’s basically pumping straight 16th notes on the kick drum through the entire verse and chorus.
It was originally recorded with two drum kits.
Second most impressive piece of drumming I’ve heard, after I heard a 19-year-old kid play Goanna’s “Solid Rock” on nothing but a snare, floor tom, and kick:
Oh that’s cool I didn’t know that! It’s super obvious when you listen to the isolated drums.
Wow, haven’t thought about that song in decades! It was on
and off the radio in a matter of weeks in St. Louis, never to be played
again. I liked it, but this was before Amazon, so I missed the
opportunity to buy it during the short window of time it was in the
record stores.I’m assuming it’s the same old story of a
non-American band failing in America but going back home and having
hits there for another 20 years?
You’re thinking of Cold Chisel, whose experiences in the US inspired…Goanna never really took off bigly, but they did have a two or three classics, “Solid Rock” being the most notable. Kinda understandable that a song about white colonisation of Australia didn’t really take off elsewhere, nor there protest song about the damming of the Franklin River, which is even more niche. “Razor’s Edge” was there other most famous one, and nice covered a few years back by those kings of sticky carpet, the Screaming Jets. They were part of of the politically-charged folk-rock revival that gripped Australia in the 70s and 80s, dealing with the sorts of kitchen-sink realism, history, reconciliation, environmental and social issues, and, strangely, a fascination with rural life that is odd for anyone from the cities like these guys were. Think of them as the natural rock evolution of The Seekers. Judith Durham goes electric. It was spurred on the sorts of positive, lefty nationalism that took over with the rise (and fall) of Gough Whitlam – you know, before the Americans coup’d him. Goanna was there with The Bushwhackers, The Ovarian Sisters (no prizes for guessing their political inclinations), and, of course, mum and dad and Denny’s favourite band, Redgum:Redgum would probably be the biggest band to come out of this movement, and certainly the one everyone remembers after this.
Hey, thanks for the rundown. Always glad to learn something new.Now I’m gonna watch that Goanna video again….
Going by the Wiki entry, the writer/singer of Goanna stayed in the music game solo. The two women in the band, one of which was his sister, have released albums, including one together, and I think Goanna is back together as of 2019,Solid Rock is a top 100 song in my book.
Kinda understandable that a song about white colonisation of Australia didn’t really take off elsewhere,It worked for Midnight Oil.Maybe not exactly the same, but definitely about the ramifications of white colonisation of Australia.
Shane Howard lacked Pete Garrett’s sweet dance moves.
MYV did have the entire concert up on their YouTube channel, but it’s gone now. I did read that they will put it up again in a few days. Very weird.
Yeah they’re trying to sell Paramount + or whatever it is in other countries. Its incredible so use the one month trial. Or do what you can.
Absolutely lost it when Shane played My Hero. Whew does that hit hard in the feels.
I’m still a wreck. I should stop watching it.
This was an emotional rollercoaster. I watched the entire 6+ hour thing, and I went back when CBS aired the 1 hr produced version tonight. Every band featured or sort of featured, had experienced major loss of life. I especially responded to Rush who also lost an important drummer, Wolfie playing EVH guitar and doing it well, and especially Shane Hawkings taking over his father’s drum kit for “My Hero”. That last one, I’m still pretty messed up about. Also shout out to Taylor Hawkins’ brother for oddly taking over at times, and having bizarre costume changes. Even Kesha (she was friends with Taylor) kinda rocked it even if most people were confused.Contrary to the article. I believe Novoselic was a no-show, but I did occasionally eat. Probably going to be a big part of the LA show. I’m not even mentioning half of what made this one of the best things of all time. I was thinking I’ll look at my laptop occasionally, and it got the full surround big screen tv treatment almost immediately. A+
Yes, I noticed that, too. Almost nobody mentioned it (I think Geddy Lee), but almost everybody on stage had, at some point, lost a band member or collaborator. In addition to those you mentioned, Chrissie Hynde, John Paul Jones, Joe Walsh, Brian May and Roger Taylor, and of course, Paul McCartney … hell, Pat Smear lost the same two members as Grohl AND Darby Crash. A ton of loss on that stage.
Lars may have lost one, I don’t recall when he entered Metallica but that has a death, and Travis Barker was the only survivor in a straight up plane crash with a side project. I think this show went further than anyone realizes. I’m kinda devastated
Lars Ulrich was one of two founding members, and a few years later was in the crash that killed their bass player Cliff Burton.
Absolutely brutal accident, and I don’t mean brutal in the Metalocalypse sense. Although it was an extremely metal way to die.
Lars Ulrich started Metallica with James Hetfield, so yeah he lost Cliff Burton after about 4 or 5 years of playing together.
No Axl/GNR?
Liam Gallagher’s been out of the public eye so long I’d almost forgotten he can’t sing at all.
Justin Hawkins from The Darkness kiiiiillled! His voice is still crazy good!
Brain hurty
Bad ads!
Oh shit, I didn’t even know he died. 🙁