Heartwarming / Foo Fighters

• "The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners" is named after the two miners who survived a 2006 mine collapse in Tasmania, who specifically requested the band's music (along with food, water and toothpaste) to be brought down to them while they waited to be rescued. Upon hearing this, Grohl personally wrote a fax to the miners to be brought down to them offering to share a beer with them when they were rescued.
• In 2000, on David Letterman's first Late Show back after open heart surgery, the band rescheduled a whole leg of their tour to perform the then 3-year old "Everlong" on the show. The resulting performance, in which Letterman introduces them as "my favorite band, performing my favorite song" is nothing short of amazing.
  • Which they played again in David's final show in 2015, over a montage of highlights in David's career.
• This cover of The Police's "Next To You", with Taylor Hawkins on vocals and Stewart Copeland — who Hawkins has cited a one of his chief influences — as guest drummer. At the end of the song, Hawkins gets up and hugs Copeland before taking over again.
• One incident described in the Back & Forth documentary: in the early 2000s in London, Taylor overdosed and was in a coma at the hospital. After a couple weeks he woke up, and the conversation Dave describes goes like this:
  Dave: "Dude, it's gonna be okay."
  Taylor: "Fuck off!"
  Dave: (thinking) "Oh good, everything's gonna be okay."
• If you're a fan of rock distressed by the state of music today just listen to Dave Grohl's award acceptance speech at the 2012 Grammys. It will reinforce your faith in music as a whole.
• Welcome to the greatest fucking night of their lives. At the 2009 Wembley Stadium concert, Dave takes the time to thank the crowd and the country of England for making the band who they are today...and to introduce John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, who go on to play with the band for the next two songs! As one commentor notes, "Dave looks like he is dead in heaven" for the entirety.
• People go to great lengths to have the Foos play their city. Richmond, Virginia and Birmingham, England both crowdfunded concerts. None, however, quite matched Rockin1000, a group in the Italian city of Cesena who attempted to convince the Foos by having one thousand people play "Learn to Fly"! Not only did this get them to play, they invited some of the musicians from the video onstage to sing "Under Pressure."
  • Before that, Dave responded to the video in Italian.
• Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the world was in a dreary place. To raise money for several good causes, IHeartRadio held a fundraiser concert with several musical acts performing from their homes, including Dave, who dedicated his performance to the front line workers who were working around the clock during the pandemic. His song of choice? "My Hero."
• In November 2019, African-British child musical prodigy Nandi Bushell played a cover of Nirvana's "In Bloom" on her Youtube channel, getting 10 million views in a matter of weeks and attracting Grohl's attention. The next year in August 2020, she and Grohl started a friendly "drum-off battle", which ended with Grohl conceding defeat and offering to let Bushell play with the band when they were able to tour the U.K. again. Before that could happen, however, the Foos and Bushell ended up being in Los Angeles at the same time, with Dave bringing her onstage in front of 17,000 fans to take Taylor's place and play "Everlong" as the final song of the concert.
• Two tribute concerts for Taylor Hawkins were planned. The first, at Wembley Stadium, featured rock legends like The Pretenders, Lars Ulrich of Metallica, Brian Johnson of AC/DC, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, the surviving members of Rush, and Paul McCartney, but it also featured the next generation of musicians. Nandi Bushell joined the band for "Learn to Fly," Dave Grohl's daughter Violet sang while her father played the drums, and Taylor's son Shane joined the band for "My Hero."
• December 31, 2022: After some speculation, the group issued a statement saying they would go on without Taylor, saying "Without Taylor, we never would have become the band that we were – and without Taylor, we know that we’re going to be a different band going forward. We know that when we see you again – and we will soon – he’ll be there in spirit with all of us every night.".

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