Watch Rick Astley cover Foo Fighters’ ‘Everlong’: “One of the best songs ever”

Rick Astley covered Foo Fighters‘ ‘Everlong’ at a gig in Leicester last weekend, describing the track as “one of the best songs ever”.

• READ MORE: Soundtrack Of My Life: Rick Astley

The singer was performing at Radio 2 in the Park in Leicester on Saturday (September 17) when he joked that he likes “playing other people’s songs”, asking the crowd if they were “in the mood for us to murder one of the best songs ever?”.

The ’80s pop icon and his band then launched in a rendition of the Foos’ classic 1997 song. “Can I get a ‘hell yeah!’, Leicester?” he cheered at the end of the performance.

You can check out footage below.

Not only is Astley a fan of the US band – having covered ‘Everlong’ in 2016 and 2020 on his YouTube channel – but he’s struck up an unlikely friendship with frontman Dave Grohl and performed with him on numerous occasions.

In 2017 Astley made a surprise appearance with Foo Fighters at Japan’s Summer Sonic festival, with the singer later claiming he had “no idea” why Grohl would invite him onstage.

Then, at the return of the legendary Club NME in 2019, Astley joined Grohl at Moth Club in London to perform drums on ‘Times Like These’, ‘Everlong’, ‘Best Of You’ and Astley’s own hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.

“I don’t know much about Club NME,” Grohl said, “but I know you’re not gonna see this anywhere else”.

The pair reunited the very next week at Reading festival for another performance together.

More recently, though, Astley has been dedicating his covers effort to The Smiths‘ – forming a band dedicated to doing so with Blossoms.

The pop legend and Stockport band appeared on stage together at the latter’s headline show at the O2 Kentish Town Forum in London in 2021, and played surprise covers of The Smiths’ ‘Panic’ and ‘This Charming Man’.

They later held two special one-off tribute shows to The Smiths in London and Manchester.

The two acts reunited at Glastonbury this year for a secret set of Smiths covers, much to the delight of fans.

“I can’t tell you how much I love doing this,” Astley told NME. “I know it’s sacrilege and they should hang the lot of us on the line for doing it, but I also just don’t care.

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