The performance alongside Bruce Springsteen in England was Dave Grohl’s first live gig since the death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins
Glastonbury attendees got the surprise of a lifetime when Paul McCartney was joined on stage by two fellow musical legends on Saturday.
During McCartney’s two-and-a-half-hour set at the festival in England, the former Beatle brought out both Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl for performances, marking the latter’s first concert since the death of his longtime friend and Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins in March.
“We love you,” McCartney, 80, told Grohl, 53, according to the BBC, revealing to the audience watching him headline the Pyramid Stage that Grohl “flew in specially to do this.”
“I swear, I would never miss being right here with you, right now,” Grohl responded, per the BBC.
According to the Associated Press, Grohl joined McCartney for renditions of “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Band on the Run,” while Springsteen, 72, rocked on “I Wanna Be Your Man” and his own “Glory Days.”
Grohl describes meeting McCartney for the first time in his 2021 memoir The Storyteller, along with a subsequent anecdote about how the legendary English musician once came to his house for dinner and ended up giving his middle daughter Harper, now 13, her first piano lesson when she was 5 years old.
“We have wine and pizza and we’re hanging out, and it was time for Paul to go,” Grohl summarized on The Graham Norton Show back in October 2021. “Paul and [his wife] Nancy were leaving and there was a piano in the corner of the room, and he just can’t help himself.”
“So he sits down at the piano and starts playing ‘Lady Madonna’ … in my f–ing house!” the musician recalled. “My mind is blown, I can’t believe this is happening. This is like the most full-circle, crazy moment of my entire life.”
Speaking of Harper joining the former Wings member, Grohl added, “She’d never taken a lesson to play any instrument at that point, and she sat down and she watched his hands. They sat together, and he was showing her what to play, and they wrote a song together.”
Foo Fighters drummer Hawkins died suddenly on March 25 in Bogotá, Colombia, just before the band was scheduled to take the stage at a music festival. He was 50 years old.
Following Hawkins’ death, McCartney shared a heartfelt tribute to the late musician, who died just months after McCartney helped induct him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
McCartney posted a picture to Instagram of himself and Hawkins onstage at the October 2021 induction ceremony, and wrote that he was shocked by Hawkins’ death.
“Taylor’s sudden death came as a shock to me and the people who knew and loved him,” McCartney wrote. “Not only was he a GREAT drummer but his personality was big and shiny and will be sorely missed by all who were lucky to live and work alongside him.”
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