Watch Foo Fighters cover Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ at Bonnaroo

21 June, 2023

Josh Freese and Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters covered a snippet of Beastie Boys‘ ‘Sabotage’ during their set at Bonnaroo.

The show at this year’s event in Tennessee earlier this week marked the latest of many upcoming festival appearances the band are set to make this summer.

Cuing bassist Nate Mendel to kick off the 1994 hit’s opening riff, frontman Dave Grohl said: “Fuck, let’s do it – go, Nate, go,” before he took on the first verse.

After a few lines, Grohl stopped and said: “I can’t fucking rap and I don’t know the song, though I love it.” He then added: “Next year, we’ll come back to Bonnaroo, we’ll play at the fucking ‘Wha-What Stage’ and we’ll do a whole Beastie Boys set, how about that?” You can view footage below.

The snippet was part of a medley section that the band have been including on their tour which has previously seen them cover snippets of Devo’s ‘Whip It’ and Nine Inch Nails’ ‘March Of The Pigs’.

During the same performance at Bonnaroo, the band were also joined onstage by Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams for ‘My Hero’.

The singer – who has often cited the band as a source of inspiration for Paramore – had performed on that same stage just before Foo Fighters kicked off their show.

Elsewhere in their set, Foo Fighters also broke out multiple songs from their latest studio effort, ‘But Here We Are’.

Released earlier this month, the album marked the band’s 11th studio album, and their first new music since the sudden passing of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins last March. In their latest set, the band performed new tracks ‘Under You’, ‘Rescued’ and ‘Show Me How’.

Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters CREDIT: Alive Coverage / Boston Calling

For the latter, the band were joined onstage by another special guest, Violet Grohl, the frontman’s daughter who also contributed vocals to the emotive track. She also performed a rendition of the track ‘Shame Shame’ while onstage with the members.

Other highlights of the show included a performance of ‘Aurora’ – dedicated to the late drummer, shortly before the band ended their set.

The band are heavily rumoured to be making a surprise appearance at Glastonbury this week. The speculation arose after a mystery band named ‘The Churnups’ were revealed to be performing a set on the opening night of the festival (June 23).

They are billed to perform on the Pyramid Stage for an hour and a quarter (6:15pm-7:30pm BST) ahead of Royal Blood (8:15 pm-9:15pm BST) and headliners Arctic Monkeys (10:15pm-11:45pm BST).

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