Taylor Hawkins' Son Playing 'My Hero' With The Foo Fighters At His Tribute Concert Was Unbelievably Emotional
Yesterday, the first of two Taylor Hawkins tribute shows was held at Wembley Stadium (the next will be in Los Angeles on September 27th) and it was an incredibly emotional night of rock n' roll music to say the least.
From Liam Gallagher opening the show with 'Rock N Roll Star' and 'Live Forever'....
To Wolfgang Van Halen playing some of Taylor's favorite Van Halen songs (for the first time since Eddie Van Halen passed, I believe) to perfection....
To Violet Grohl's unbelievably beautiful renditions of 'Last Goodbye' and 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley, as well as 'Valerie'….
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To Joe Walsh and the James Gang (Taylor's favorite band) reuniting after 15 years of not playing together for this show….
To legends of rock Brian Johnson and Lars Ulrich playing together with the Foo Fighters….
To the remaining members of RUSH playing with Dave Grohl and the legendary Omar Hakim….
To Brian May, Roger Taylor, Rufus Taylor (Taylor Hawkins' godson) and the Foo Fighters playing some of Queen's greatest hits with the help of Justin Hawkins from The Darkness and Luke Spiller from The Struts….
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….but when Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee took the stage for the Foo Fighters' closing set, that's when the tears really started flowing.
They opened up with quite possibly the most emotional performance I've ever seen at a rock n' roll show, doing 'Times Like These' like they had been on tour right before Taylor's passing. Dave Grohl struggled to make it through the opening few lines before breaking down in tears, but the crowd at Wembley was there to lift him up and went nuts, allowing the Foo Fighters to kick into action….
Josh Freese, Travis Barker, Rufus Taylor, Nandi Bushell, and Omar Hakim all filled in on the drums during the Foo set, all doing a great job, and then Paul McCartney came out as a surprise to do 'Oh! Darling' live (with Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders) for the FIRST TIME EVER!
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One final drummer then joined the Foo Fighters at the end of the night: Shane Hawkins, Taylor's 16-year-old son - for an amazing, incredibly emotional performance of 'My Hero'….
What a moment, man. It's crazy how much he plays like his father already. From the stick twirls to the hard-hitting rockstar energy to even the facial expressions - there's simply no denying he's a Hawkins. I can't imagine the strength it took for him to get up there in front of a sold-out Wembley Stadium, but I promise you he did his father proud.
If you missed the concert, I'd highly urge you to check it out - it's long (just over 6 hours) but it was genuinely the best concert I've ever watched from start-to-finish and exceeded every expectation humanely possible. There's tons of acts I didn't even mention in this blog who CRUSHED, like Them Crooked Vultures, The Pretenders, Supergrass, Justin Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, Chevy Metal, and Stewart Copeland even did a couple Police songs with Foo!
Check it out on-demand tomorrow on Paramount Plus.