Dave Grohl has reflected on the day he broke his leg on stage as Foo Fighters returned to Sweden for a show exactly 11 years later.
It was during the second song (‘Monkey Wrench’) of a gig at Gothenburg’s Ullevi Stadium on June 12, 2015 that the frontman fell from the stage and broke his leg in an accident that ultimately forced the band to cancel their Glastonbury headline set that year, as well as a pair of shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.
Tonight (June 12), 11 years to the day since that fateful show, Foo Fighters found themselves back in the same country for a gig at the Strawberry Arena in Solna as part of their ‘Take Cover’ tour.
The irony was not lost on Grohl, who took a moment while introducing the song ‘Walk’ to remember that day. “I fell off the stage and I bust my fucking leg,” he said. “That was 11 years ago today. Same day! How fucking weird is that. Coincidence? I don’t think so!”
“So, tonight,” he continued, “I’m gonna sing this song real fucking hard, because honestly, I think it was my favourite Foo Fighters show we’ve ever had in our fucking lives. Because we kept playing, we finished that fucking show for you. So we’ll sing this song for you.”
The band only stopped playing for a few minutes after Grohl’s fall, and remarkably, he rejoined them for the rest of the show, after briefly leaving the stage to get a cast put on his leg.
They returned to the stage just a few weeks later on July 4 in Washington DC, with Grohl sitting in a throne with his leg propped up.
Florence + The Machine ended up stepping into their headline slot at Glastonbury 2015, with Foo Fighters finally topping the bill in 2017. During that show, Grohl thanked both Florence and his surgeon James.
“I’m about two years late tonight, I’m sorry. Traffic was a bitch,” Grohl said. “But I watched [Florence’s] show on my laptop as I was sitting in a wheelchair with a broken leg, and it looked beautiful. And my friend Florence got to headline that year, and I’m very happy that that happened, because you know what? I thought she should have been headlining anyway.”
Foo Fighters’ current tour will see them play two nights in Liverpool on June 25 and 27, and will also include their festival appearances at Mad Cool and NOS Alive festival. Support across various dates will include Royel Otis, Inhaler, IDLES, Otoboke Beaver, Fat Dog and Die Spitz. Get any remaining tickets here.
They released their new album ‘Your Favorite Toy’ in April, which NME gave 3 and a half stars, noting: ‘Your Favorite Toy’ is a few more tracks of that depth away from being the most vital Foo Fighters record since 1997’s ‘The Colour and the Shape’,” we wrote. “For now, at least, they have remembered that no-frills punk, played fast and loud, suits them much better than middle-of-the-road dad-rock.”