“I only played the drums on that song”: Foo Fighters cover Tenacious D but Dave Grohl forgets the words

Thought Tenacious D had been cancelled in the wake of Kyle Gass’s comments about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump? Certainly not in Dave Grohl's mind.

The Foo Fighters covered Tenacious D’s Tribute at a show in Denver, Colorado on Saturday night. As you can see from the fan footage below it was during the acoustic section of the gig. Grohl only gets so far through the song, admitting that he doesn’t know all the lyrics. After all, he says, “I only played the drums on that song.”

Foo Fighters • Tribute [Tenacious D cover] (Denver, Colorado 8/3/2024) - YouTube

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It comes just weeks when after Tenacious D got into hot water during their Australian tour. At a gig in Sydney the week after the Trump incident, Jack Black sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to his bandmate Gass, before asking him to make a wish. Gass then quipped: “Don’t miss Trump next time”.

All hell broke loose. An Australian senator called for their deportation. The band’s tour was cut short and all future creative plans were “put on hold”. Gass was even dropped by his agent.

However, there are evidently degrees of cancellation and Dave Grohl has always been a loyal type, anyway.

The comedy rock duo and Grohl go back a long way – Black and Gass had cameos in the Foos’ Learn To Fly video from 1999 and during their early days would regularly open up for the band. And, of course, Grohl played drums on their 2001 self-titled debut album, which included Tribute.

The Foo Fighters are on the last few dates of their US tour, with shows on the West Coast in San Diego, LA, Portland and Seattle. They recently had to cut short a show in Queens, New York due to a thunderstorm and the ensuing torrential downpour.

Afterwards the band issued a statement: “We are so disappointed that we were unable to play our full set for tonight’s fantastic crowd at Citi Field,” they wrote. “But the safety of our fans, the crew and everyone working in the stadium comes first, so when it was determined that there was no safe way to continue the show in this dangerous weather, we had no choice but to call it a night.”

They continued: “We’re grateful for every second we were able to play for you and looking forward to seeing you again - maybe as soon as Friday!”

The band eventually returned to Citi Field on that Friday (19 July) to play their show in full.