One year ago, the shocking news of beloved Foo Fighters drummers' death.
On March 25th 2022 the world got news of the much loved Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins' death. It feels so sad to me that he left us at such an early age at only 50. He was on tour with the Foo Fighters in South America when he died. Taylor joined the Foo Fighters whilst being the drummer for the Alanis Morrisette band. He and Dave met and the 'bromance' was instant. Sometimes we are lucky enough to meet people in this life and instantly feel a wonderfully deep connection. This was true for Dave and Taylor. And they kept it going for the next 25 years. As The Music Soup loves this band we are paying tribute to Hawkins by publishing the articles and photo galleries from past several Foo shows we've covered. This one was from BottleRock Napa when The Foo Fighters headlined in 2021.
If you have not yet seen this yet....100 drummers paying tribute to Taylor... https://youtu.be/l5P1Qr5JoR0
(Originally published June 2021) Due to Covid, same as all the other events in the past 18 months, BottleRock was postponed last year and also postponed this year from the annual Memorial Day weekend at the end of May, to Labor Day weekend. I attended BottleRock only one of the three days this year. The one day and that was day 3, Foo Fighters headlined. Apart from BottleRock weekend being postponed, the weekend headliner, Stevie Nicks that was scheduled for Friday, cancelled, and Chris Stapleton took her place and then he cancelled again. In their place The Highwomen stepped in to headline Friday night. The Highwomen comprised of Brandi Carlisle, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. An all female country group, named for Johnny Cash's The Highwaymen. Saturday, Guns and Roses headlined and then Sunday, September 5 was Cage the Elephant before Foo Fighters hit the stage.
Foo Fighters were on form as usual, performing many of their monster hits. Dave Grohl, guitarist, drummer and frontman was on fire as normal, talking and singing to the 30 thousand+ strong audience, most of which there was not a mask in sight. A couple weeks before this show, the Foo Fighters organization had to cancel their LA show at the Forum due to Covid infecting someone in the Foo organization. yet, Grohl looks out into the faces of the 30,000+ crowd asking them to scream, and sing, even though he sees no masks in the sea of Foo fans, whilst covid cases are still rising. Nevertheless, the Foo set was awesome and they finished ten minutes before curfew, unlike last time they played BottleRock in 2017 where the plug was pulled at 10pm, but the band and the audience sang the last song with no PA system working. I assume the band got slapped with Napa Valley fines for doing this. All in all, I AM a FOO fan and seeing them is always energizing and fun! FF is one of those bands that even if you can't name one of their familiar songs, you'll find yourself knowing a bunch of their tunes when you hear them!