However awful the circumstances leading up to their most recent album, they sound like a band with something to prove, who are enjoying themselves enormously in the process of proving it. Grohl’s daughter Violet makes a brief appearance on vocals – impressively, she’s the very model of gum-chewing nonchalance in front of tens of thousands of people – but the most striking thing about their performance is how relaxed the songs sound, extended with lengthy solos and impressive fills from Hawkins’ replacement, Josh Freese. The band literally run on stage, already playing their guitars as they charge through All My Life and a version of 2020’s No Son of Mine that comes interpolated with the riffs of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and Metallica’s Enter Sandman, they sound more raw and vital than any artists rightfully should 28 years into their career. However, this year’s But Here We Are – their first album since the 2022 death of drummer Taylor Hawkins – felt charged with a fresh sense of purpose and energy, as does their Glastonbury set.
Foo Fighters’ recent albums have arrived with an accompanying sense of obligation, as if they have been made simply to give the band an excuse to continue touring without slipping into the “heritage rock” category, filled with songs designed to tolerably plug the gaps between the hits in concert.
Photograph: David Levene/The Guardianįoregone conclusion or not, theres a genuine sense of excitement about their hour-long performance. The secret’s out … Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters on the Pyramid stage, with new drummer Josh Freese. Still, the audience gamely play along, roaring as if it’s an incredible and welcome revelation when the Churnups’ logo vanishes from the stage-side screens and is replaced by that of Dave Grohl and co. Stories that the mysterious band who appear on Friday afternoon’s Pyramid stage bill as the Churnups are actually Blur or Pulp – two Britpop heroes currently reformed and playing shows – have long died out: everyone seems to know it is actually Foo Fighters, playing more or less the same slot at the festival as they did 25 years ago, when they were making their Glastonbury debut. Nevertheless, what was supposed to be the weekend’s biggest surprise turned out to be its worst-kept secret. Most lurid of all, there were those who insisted that the final British show of John’s record-breaking farewell tour was going to be enlivened by the spectral appearance of a hologram of the late George Michael. Others were convinced that Elton was going to bring on Harry Styles: after last year, when you could barely walk a few feet without hearing someone sagely informing someone else that Styles was definitely going to turn up on stage with Paul McCartney, or Billie Eilish, or Kendrick Lamar, or perhaps dishing up pad thai in a food stall just south of the Other stage, the former One Direction heart-throb now appears to be a permanent fixture of the Glasto rumour mill. Sunday’s headliner Elton John would supposedly be performing with special guest Britney Spears – for some reason, a post on Spears’s Instagram account featuring a photograph of a segmented apple was held up as incontrovertible proof that she was boarding a Somerset-bound helicopter. This year’s Glastonbury festival site seemed to be as awash with wild speculation as ever.
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