Taylor Hawkins: the Other Foo Star

Drummer shines during the 25-song set at Los Angeles’ Forum

“It’s gonna be a long f**king night. We don’t play those f**kin’ two-hour shows your favorite band plays… Let’s try and get it to three tonight.” — David Grohl

Foo Fighters is my favorite band. Period.

And trust me he wasn’t f**king kidding. The Foo more than rocked the hell at of the Forum that night on October 14, 2011, during the 25-song set.

Grohl the great

The first image of this memorable, kick-ass concert was, of course, energetic frontman Dave Grohl with his wild long hair bouncing all over the stage to such iconic tunes as “Everlong,” “My Hero” and “The Pretender,” but №2 was the amazing and intense drumming — and singing — skills of the late great Foo Fighter drummer Taylor Hawkins.

We had front-row, upper-level seats directly to the left of the stage.

Grohl returns to his roots

It was myself, buddy Gil Brittingham, and his friend Greg Russell. Greg was overly opinionated. Greg, who had too much to drink, fell asleep during Cage the Elephant’s opening act, a set which featured Grohl on drums, filling in for regular Jared Champion, who needed an emergency appendectomy.

An amusing game

Anytime a large-sized concert goer passed below us, my friend Gil and I would — in unison — yell “Patrick, gosh Dammit.” A portly friend of ours would yell this anytime his menacing kid did anything mischievous like push kids into a pool.

The dude can sing!

When the Foo Fighters finally took the stage, I knew I’d love head-bangers like “Stacked Actors” and Grohl’s screaming in “Monkey Wrench,” but what I didn’t realize that night was that Hawkins could sing. And well.

Allowing Grohl to rest his pipes, Hawkins sang the first of two cover songs, singing Pink Floyd’s “In the Flesh.” It was fascinating watching Hawkins go from passionately pounding the drums with his long blonde hair flying every which way to taking the mike and singing in the familiar Roger Waters-like voice.

“Is this not what you expected to see?/If you wanna find out what’s behind these cold eyes/You’ll just have to claw your way through this disguise.” “In the Flesh” by Pink Floyd.

No, it wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t far off. He has a beautiful singing voice.

Insane drum solo

With his shirt off — and Grohl and the rest of the band running off backstage — the lights dimmed, and a spotlight was put on Hawkins.

He was never better. It was his time to shine. You could see the beads of sweat jumping off his stringy long hair. His wrists jumped quickly from drum to drum as he banged away fearlessly like Mozart on the piano.

The drum beats got faster and faster. And louder and louder, leaving myself and the rest of the crowd in awe. I wondered how long he could keep it up.

He shined brighter than the bright spotlight on him.

Hawkins proved at that moment he was just as much meant for the rockstar stardom as Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters.

An intimate moment

Later, Grohl took a seat at the back of the stage and faced our direction. It was an intimate moment for those to that side of the stage in the lower section. We, too, had a terrific view at Dave singing “Miss the Misery.”

“If I had my way/If I had to lose/Wouldn’t take back one thing, never had much to choose/Then it dawned on me/Coming down on you/Like a cold sky raining under a burning moon.” “Miss the Misery, Foo Fighters.

It was also a good chance to watch and hear the drumming of Hawkins, which resonated and boomed throughout the arena during this intimate moment. With the stage lights on, we all got a view not just of Grohl’s greatness but also a cool view of Hawkins ferociously hammering away.

Then Grohl returned to his overly enthusiastic self, ran wildly on the extended runaway to a cover of “Breakdown” (by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) as Hawkins matched every Grohl high note with a just as energetic drum beat.

Hawkins: the perfect ying to Grohl’s yang.

Excellent encore

The band left the stage, and the 18,000-plus fans and I had started screaming our lungs out and clapping as loud as we could for the return of the Foo Fighters to the stage.

Once again, the band didn’t disappoint.

“How many songs do you want to hear? One? Taylor should we play one?” he asked his drummer.

Hawkins shook his head, did quick, loud drum rudiments, and put up two fingers.

“Oh, two songs? Taylor?”

The crowd booed, and Taylor again banged his drums loudly in disapproval.

This continued until Grohl finally ask Hawkins, “How many songs should we play, Taylor?”

Hawkins counted it off with each bang of the drum and then displayed seven fingers. Much to the crowd’s cheering approval.

It was a spectacular seven-song set that ended with my all-time favorite Foo Fighter song “Everlong” and an ever-long memory of the late great Taylor Hawkins.

Powerful lyrics

“And I wonder/When I sing along with you/If everything could ever be this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again.” “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters.

These lyrics, to me, seem to say how every relationship has great moments that we want to last forever, but — sadly — we all realize this isn’t the case. Unfortunately, great times only last so long. This song resonated with me what Taylor Hawkins meant to his family and friends, the Foo Fighters, and the rock world.

May you rest in peace Taylor. We’ll all miss you and your gifted drumming skills.

Thank you for reading my tribute to Taylor Hawkins.

Tagging some possible Foo Fighter fans: Scot Butwell, Sreese, Klara Jane Holloway, Lu Skerdoo, Sreese, Adelina Vasile, Diana Meresc, Janet Meisel, Victoria Valentine, Ning Choi, Evon, The Sober Vegan Yogi, Alicia Domínguez, Jan Sebastian, Jane Kelley, J.R. Spiers, Alison Levine, MarkfromBoston 🌻Ukraine.

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