Foo Fighters Rick Roll Summer Sonic Festival Crowd With ‘New Best Friend’ Rick Astley
They're no strangers to love .. and it looks like this was love at first sight! Foo Fighters gave the Summer Sonic audience in Japan a collaboration that few would have expected, bringing out Rick Astley onstage to join them.
Perhaps the seeds of the collaboration were already there, given that Foo Fighters previously Rick Rolled the Westboro Baptist Church when the organization planned a protest of their show. Meanwhile, Astley has show his penchant for harder edged rock than he's known for, sitting in on drums and rocking out some "Highway to Hell" from AC/DC.
Dave Grohl introduced Astley as the band's "new best friend," before confessing, "This is f--kin' crazy. I just met him two minutes ago." Perhaps surprising the crowd a little bit, Astley called out, "C'mon all you motherf--kers" to the audience. As he did so, drummer Taylor Hawkins can be seen on the big screen burying his head on the drumkit chuckling with a big smile.
As fans might expect, the band covered "Never Gonna Give You Up" with Astley on vocals, but it was more of a mashup than a cover with the musical backing mirroring Grohl's past with the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" licks as Astley sang over it. It's definitely a unique pairing of hit songs that somehow worked in the live setting. Check out footage in the player above.
Grohl and Astley also posed for a selfie together with humorous photo seen below.
Foo Fighters are currently touring in the East, with dates coming up in Korea, Thailand and Singapore, before hitting up Lollapalooza Germany, then returning to the U.S. in October for a fall tour. Dates can be found here.
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