Never Miss Your Heroes

28th February 2022 just before midday. I get a text from my daughter in upper case letters – so it must be important and urgent. It read...

I hesitated for about 2 seconds and fired back a quick message “Let’s go!”. In that 2 seconds I thought about the long drive to Geelong from home and leaving in peak hour on a Friday night! I thought about getting my family and my daughter’s friend to Geelong safely. I thought about where I was going to park and get family dinner. I thought about the walk to the venue and standing in the rain for 3+ hours (the forecast was for a very wet Geelong that night). I thought about the walk back to the car after the concert and long drive back home in heavy rain and heavy traffic at 1:00am in the morning. It felt like it was going to be a pain and hassle. But after those 2 seconds, I thought about going to see one of my favourite bands live. Then I thought about all the great bands that I missed in the past. I’ll never get to see Michael Hutchins with INXS or Freddy Mercury with Queen. I missed Pink Floyd, Mötley Crüe and Toto at their peak in the 1980’s. So I wasn’t going to deny myself and my daughter of one of my favourite bands. She also loves the Foo Fighters and Taylor Hawkins is one of her inspirations. It was a sad day when we heard about Taylor Hawkins death. I was glad that we got to see him play in one his last few concerts with the Foos before he passed. And I was happy that I gave my daughter the opportunity to see one of her hero’s live on the big stage at a great stadium rock concert!

I’ve loved the Foo Fighters since the release of their album ‘Colour and the Shape in 1997’. But more importantly, I love the story of Dave Grohl and what he went through during his time with Nirvana, another one of my favourite 1990’s bands. I admire Dave Grohl not only for his music but also for the great human being that he is. While many people in the music industry talk about him positively, we got to see it first-hand with the story of the Beaconsfield miners. The Beaconsfield Gold mine collapsed on 25 April 2006 killing one miner Larry Knight and trapping two other miners, Brant Webb and Todd Russell for two weeks 1,000 meters underground. When rescuers reached the men and provided them with essential provisions, they asked if there was anything else they could be provided with to help them during the ordeal. Brant Webb requested some Foo Fighters music. When Dave Grohl heard the story, he sent them a message… "Though I'm halfway around the world right now, my heart is with you both, and I want you to know that when you come home, there's two tickets to any Foos show, anywhere, and two cold beers waiting for you. Deal?" In October 2006, Brant Webb took up Dave’s offer joining him for a drink after the Foo Fighters acoustic concert at the Sydney Opera House.

Going back to the Geelong concert, the Foo Fighters opened with Times Like These. Appropriate and an understatement for the times we’ve just been through. For two years we’ve endured lock down after lock down and resulting in the decimation of the live music and arts scene in this country, particularly Melbourne. I know we’ll bounce back and I hope that our business and political leaders continue to provide the support that’s needed. During the concert, Dave Grohl told us the story of how they managed to get back to Australia. He started of with the line “It’s been a long time, m----- f-----s!” referring to the countries border closures during the pandemic. He went on to say that he’d be keeping an eye on the news to see when our borders would re-open. Then around mid-February he read the news at 5:00am in the morning that Australia was re-opening. He immediately contacted his manager and told him ‘We are going to Australia now – let’s organise a tour!’. And in just 3 weeks, the Foo Fighters were playing a stadium concert in Geelong. He told us how much he loved Australia, how many friends they have over here and paid tribute to the late Michael Gudinski who died a year earlier.

The Foo Fighters concert was one of the best, if not the best concert I’ve ever been to and we all had a great time! So if you get an opportunity to see one of your favourite bands or artists today, just go - you may not get the chance to see them again.

RIP Taylor Hawkins
#LiveMusic #Rock #Guitar #FooFighters