Renewed Foo Fighters to return for summer Australian stadium tour in 2023
Dave Grohl’s band will play a series of shows to kick off the summer concert calendar, marking the group’s first visit to Australia since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins.
American rock band Foo Fighters will play a series of stadium concerts to kick off the summer concert calendar, marking the group’s first visit to Australia since its one-off Geelong gig last year.
Beginning November 29 in Perth and ending December 12 in Brisbane, the five-date tour is essentially a rescheduled itinerary for what had been booked to take place late last year by promoter Frontier Touring.
Those dates were cancelled following the shock death of Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins while on tour in Colombia last March, just three weeks after he and his bandmates had performed to about 30,000 people in Geelong.
That was a Victorian government-supported concert to celebrate the post-Covid reopening of international borders to performers and tourists alike, and it was also one of the final times that Hawkins played live before his sudden death due to heart failure, aged 50.
The late drummer’s wide respect across the global music industry was evidenced in major memorial concerts held in London and Los Angeles in September, which featured performances from members of The Beatles, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Black Sabbath and Rush.
Frontman Dave Grohl and his devastated bandmates went to ground for much of last year, before announcing in December a decision to continue recording and performing in tribute to Hawkins.
For the grief-stricken musician, there was a sense of history repeating, for Foo Fighters had been formed as a one-man-band in the wake of the sudden death of his bandmate in Nirvana, Kurt Cobain.
As before, Grohl wrote through the pain, and the fruit of their collective mourning for Hawkins was released last week in the shape of its 11th album.
Titled But Here We Are, the 10-track set is dedicated to both Hawkins and Grohl’s mother Virginia, a teacher and author who died in August.
The band members gave zero interviews ahead of its release, opting to let the emotionally raw and musically powerful songs speak for themselves.
Grohl’s eldest daughter, 17-year-old Violet, performs a beautiful duet with her dad on seventh track Show Me How, while the closing lyrics of final song Rest are these: “Waking up, had another dream of us / In the warm Virginia sun, there I will meet you.”
The six-piece band has recently resumed touring with new drummer Josh Freese, and Foo Fighters’ five-show Australian run is among the first major international visits to be announced for later this year, following Coldplay’s exclusive two-night stand at Perth’s Optus Stadium on November 18 and 19.
Last week, rockers Motley Crue and Def Leppard announced a co-headline tour, with the pair to play three stadiums shows from November 8 to 14. Pop musician Pink, meanwhile, will perform 14 stadium dates beginning February 9 in Sydney and ending March 19 in Brisbane.
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