Dave Grohl couldn't be happier to have Foo Fighters back out on the road — but he admitted that there's still fear about touring with Covid remaining an ongoing cause for concern. Grohl spoke to NME, and explained, "For the two-and-a-half hours onstage, it feels amazing. It’s the other hours of the day that pose a bit of a challenge because of all the new requirements and restrictions and guidelines. You have to be really careful out there. When you’re traveling with a crew of 60 people from state-to-state and venue-to-venue, you try your best to stay within your band bubble because the wheels could fall off at any moment. You wake up every day and cross your fingers and hope that we make it to the stage that day."
He went on to say, "We were fortunate to complete this last two-week run — but, y'know, we played a venue in Albuquerque (the 15,000-capacity Isleta Amphitheater) where it was the first time they’d had a show there in 688 days. And you could feel it in the audience. You could hear it when they sang along. You could see it when they danced. It’s been a town-to-town celebration of the return of live music everywhere we go — opening new venues, reopening venues that had shut down. And you could see that people have been starved of live performance — as have we. We hit the stage like we haven’t hit the stage for two years!"
Grohl went on to shed light on the constant precautions that shadow life on the road these days: "As a band, we’re most concerned with safety — the safety of the audience, the safety of our band, the crew — so we follow these guidelines. Some of them are self-imposed; others are mandates that are handed down from local governments or federal mandates and you’re very conscious of the whole thing just going away again — any time. Every day you’re just hoping that we make it through."
Ultimately, like always, Grohl says showtime is cause for the ultimate celebration for the band: "When you’re onstage. . . we’re playing like that quite possibly could be the last show. It’s great! When we hit the stage, a lot of the nerves go away because you’re back with the people, so it’s all right."
Although Dave Grohl maintains that having a blast playing music is the top priority for him and the Foos, he also told us not too long ago why it's important for the band to be engaged with what's happening in the world: ["Before we were ever in this band, we were American citizens, we were human beings, and there's some things that are important to us outside of the band, like the future of the country and the future of the environment and the world that our children have to live in in 15 or 20 years. And it's our responsibility to do what we can to try to better that."] SOUNDCUE (:18 OC: . . . to better that)
Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl On Being Engaged With The World :
