Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl surprised Coachella festival-goers this weekend with an unannounced guest appearance with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Venezuelan conductor Dudamel has been Music Director of the LA orchestra since 2009, and is set to become the Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic next year.
Grohl’s unanticipated cameo during the orchestra’s set saw him perform Foo Fighters’ best-loved song Everlong, from 1997’s The Colour And The Shape, plus The Sky Is A Neighborhood from 2017’s Concrete and Gold.
Watch the performance of Everlong below.
Los Angeles Philharmonic & Gustavo Dudamel – Everlong Foo Fighters with Dave Grohl Coachella Week2 – YouTube 
Foo Fighters have not performed since Grohl revealed that he has become a father for the fourth time, with the birth of a baby daughter born outside of his marriage.
Back in April 2002, Dave Grohl thought that Foo Fighters’ appearance at that year’s Coachella might be his band’s final performance, after tensions within the group surfaced during rehearsals for the festival.
“The whole band had a big blow out,” Grohl told me in 2009. “We were trying to write a set list and that turned into a petty, ridiculous little argument where then I thought, Okay, I think this is probably going to be the last show. But I didn’t say anything. We started rehearsing, but the vibe was so bad that Chris [Shiflett, guitarist] said, ‘Hey guys, maybe we should talk this out…’ And then it just exploded. There was finger pointing and yelling and, honestly, I thought that would be the last show. And it would be a good way to go.”
“I was being an asshole,” drummer Taylor Hawkins told me candidly, “so it was mainly Dave and I shouting.”
“I felt that Dave was elsewhere at the time,” he admitted, referencing Grohl’s ‘moonlighting’ with Queens of the Stone Age. “We had a huge argument but it did clear the air. That was when Dave let everyone know, ‘I’m leading this band.’
“The argument was like, ‘Don’t question me. Everyone can have their opinion, that’s fine, but I’m the leader, I’m gonna have the final word, I’m gonna make the decisions and I’m gonna essentially write the songs.’ So that’s when everyone went, ‘Okay, well, now I understand where we’re at, its Dave’s band and Dave’s ideas and if you don’t like it that’s okay, we can agree to disagree, but that’s the final word.’ The dynamic changed a little bit then, but in a way it made things easier, it got rid of any lingering questions. Now we know who’s driving the ship.”