Led Zep vs. The Foos: Summer 2008's First "I Swear I Was There" Moment
The confirmation came on Friday night, when Foo Fighters were already lighting up London's Wembley Stadium for the first time of the weekend. The band's publicist told our News Editor, who texted your blogger. "Dave says they've been rehearsing with Led Zeppelin."
Stunned silence.
The newspapers had been whispering about it all week, but it was definitely going to happen: Led Zeppelin were going to reunite once more, onstage with the Foo Fighters. The summer season had barely kicked off, and already, we've had an I-swear-I-was-there moment.
Well, Zep kind of were there. Robert Plant, the miseryguts who is apparently blocking a full-on reunion tour, wasn't going to be coming along (to be fair, he was touring the States and the Foos already have one big-haired rock god in their ranks).
But, as you no doubt know by now, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones got up onstage, and along with Dave and Taylor, they tore through "Rock 'N' Roll" and "Ramble On" made 87,000 people's dreams come true. Dave and Taylor switched places halfway through "Rock 'N' Roll." Dave described it this: "he best f**king day of my life!"
And you can re-live "Rock 'N' Roll" right here! Kinda...
Can live rock 'n' roll get any more exciting this summer?
Earlier in the week I'd been up to Manchester to review the Foos' first U.K. date, at the City Of Manchester Stadium. The show was as explosive as ever, but as you can read in this week's NME issue, I couldn't shake the feeling that, after having watched pretty much the exact same show at regular intervals, albeit in increasing-sized venues, with new songs added to the mix every few years, that we'd been watching pretty much the same thing for the best part of decade now. And that, now Foo Fighters are the world's most brilliantly mechanized, massively impressive stadium rock dreadnought, that this was as far as it could go, and what they really needed to do next was to go away and refresh themselves and their ideas. That they needed something up their sleeves.
But I wasn't expecting this. Saturday night wasn't just an amazing onstage guest, it was a de facto induction of Grohl into rock's greatest pantheon. When Grohl offered up his services for last year's Zep reunion, there was a slight feeling of, "Aw, Dave...", as if he was maybe aiming just that little bit too high. But it turns out that it really was just a scheduling issue that prevented him from appearing: because eventually they made it happen, and made it brilliant.
It would be even better to see Grohl drumming with a complete lineup, but still.
Other eyebrow-raising things about the Wembley Weekend: There was another exciting revolving stage. Bizarrely, the backstage bar was an attempted replica of Central London heavy metal dive the Cro Bar, complete with the same bartenders, because Dave loves the place so much. Melanie C was sat behind NME Editor Conor McNicholas wearing jeans as tight as Faris from the Horrors and apparently "bloody loving this." The resurgent Futureheads were a much better choice of support band than the other one, Supergrass. And by the way, has anyone noticed quite-how-the-f**k many swear words Grohl uses onstage?


All new music is influenced by the past. For you to dismiss the past would mean you really don't know music.
Wish I could have been to that show. Sounds like a rocking night.