With the Foo Fighters ready to rock New Zealand this weekend, we wanna get ya in the mood by bringing back an incredible Dave Grohl performance.
Appearing on 'The Howard Stern Show' in 1998, the legendary frontman performed an acoustic version of ‘Everlong’ for the first time ever. It’s just Grohl, his guitar and his goatee and it fucking rocks.
“This will be interesting,” Grohl said before the performance. “I’ve never had to do this acoustic.”
As one of the comments on SpinMag’s Instagram post points out, it’s the “longest Stern has kept his mouth shut for,” which tells you all you need to know about how good it is.
Loads of other commenters reckon this rendition of the tune is second to none and point out it was hugely popular when it first happened.
“This is the best version of this song,” one person wrote. “Even better than the studio one.”
“This MP3 ruled Napster,” said another.
“The acoustic version really makes you feel the pain and struggle Dave was going through when he wrote this,” a third added.
“This version of this song single-handedly turned me from NOT liking Foo to LOVING Foo,” wrote another.
According to the band’s late, great drummer Taylor Hawkins, Grohl’s performance on Stern’s show is one of the biggest reasons ‘Everlong’ is as big as it is today.
“People consider that our biggest sort of hit,” he told NME. “But It wasn't a huge hit at first.”
“It's something that took [a while]... You know, Dave did an acoustic version later, just by happenstance. We were on 'Howard Stern' and he did an acoustic version and that got picked up and that got played more than the rock version, at first."
The Foo Fighters are performing at Auckland’s Go Media Stadium Mount Smart this Saturday before heading to Christchurch and Wellington. There are still tickets available here and, if you’ve already got some, find out everything you need to know here.
If you’re heading to one of their shows, consider me jealous and get ready for an incredible night.
