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Taylor Hawkins Tribute Wrap Up

By Jill Sep 30, 2022 | 12:08 PM
Raph_PH / CC

The second and final Tribute to Taylor Hawkins concert put on by the Foo Fighters and the Hawkins family was Tuesday night in LA at the Kia Forum, and it was another 6 hour show with a ton of crazy performances. Sadly, the Foos decided to not livestream the show as they did with the Wembley concert, but they did have professional cameras videoing for a future release of some sort.

I have spent my time since then looking for the best footage I can of the entire show (and some of it still isn’t the greatest but I tried), and the last time I saved my favorite for last (of course it was Taylor’s son Shane), and this time…I’m posting Shane first because there is SO MUCH that I don’t want Shane to get lost at the bottom.

Shane played “My Hero” again and went straight into “I’ll Stick Around” with the band. He was just phenomenal! I’m posting a couple different videos of Shane playing with the band because I love watching the guys interact with him and Shane with them, so you have to watch it too.

 

 

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Ok, here’s one more view of Shane Hawkin’s playing with the guys. From what I understand from one of the comments, the Hawkins family has been staying with the Grohl’s since Taylor died. I just love seeing that bond between all the guys and Shane, but especially Dave and Shane.

 

Before I move on from Shane (I swear I will…promise), a couple of pics…

 

 

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The pic of the Hawkins ladies at the end of that post with Brian May looking at them…tears.

Ok, moving on from my most favorite part (meaning Shane) at this point.

Famous rock photographer Ross Halfin posted many photos (including more I’ll share later), but he did not know that the Foos were going to use one of his photos of Taylor to blow up to ginormous size and place it on the side of the Kia Forum.

 

 

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Dave’s daughter Violet started the show by singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” with Alain Johannes accompanying her. She walked out to Taylor’s favorite Foos song “Aurora” while pics of him played. I’m not sobbing, you are.

Violet Grohl and Shane Hawkins are two damn talented kids. I can not wait to see what both of them do in the future.

Joan Jett and Travis Barker were up next along with the Foo Fighters. They covered The Runaways, which Joan was a part of.

And just a little clip of Bad Reputation:

 

Here’s the full “Bad Reputation.” The video just isn’t as great.

Shane came back onstage in introduce Chevy Metal (I know…), one of Taylor’s side projects.

They covered AC/DC’s “Riff Raff,” “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes with their current singer Jon Davison, as well as David Bowie’s “Heroes” with Kesha. The only video I could find is of the cover of “Heroes,” so here you go:

Taylor’s second side project, The Coattail Riders was up next with Foos producer Greg Kurstin, plus Rufus Taylor and Justin Hawkins of The Darkness. Rufus Taylor also happens to be Roger Taylor of Queen’s son. He and Taylor were extremely close. I believe Taylor was his Godfather.

They performed a Taylor Hawkins original called “Range Rover Bitch,” plus “It’s Over,”  Level 42 cover  “Something About You,” and then they played The Darkness’s own “I Believe In A Thing Called Love.”

Ladies and germs…”Range Rover Bitch”

“Something About You” with Mark King. Justin Hawkins is honestly my favorite part of this. He is just having so much damn fun!

And “It’s Over”

The only other video of The Coattail Riders that I could find is the performance of “I Believe In a Thing Called Love,” and I am here for it. Justin Hawkins (no relation) honestly just looks like he’s having a good time. I found a pic of him smiling backstage, and the smile on his face is just genuine happiness to be there. I’ll find it and post it in this long ass blog somewhere. Anywho…here you go…

https://youtu.be/tUZsocLYakQ

The James Gang reunited again as they did for the Wembley show with Dave Grohl playing drums. Joe Walsh had a lovely tweet afterwords.

 

They performed “Walk Away,” a mashup of “The Bomber: Closet Queen”/”Bolero”/”Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” and of course, “Funk #49.”

Here’s a different angle on “Funk #49.”

Mark Ronson, Andrew Watt, Roger Manning and Dave Grohl all performed a Gerry Rafferty cover of “Right on Down the Line.” I haven’t seen anyone post any video of that one.

Them Crooked Vultures was reunited for the second time! Along with producer Greg Kurstin they covered “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

Can I just say, Josh Homme has some damn range! He was hitting those Elton John notes!

“Dead End Friends”…some of it anyway…

They also did a Queens of the Stone Age cover of “Long Slow Goodbye.”

Another big highlight was Wolfgang Van Halen paying homage to his father, Eddie, and to Taylor. For the second time, he did something he said he wouldn’t be doing…play Van Halen songs. He actually joked about it on Twitter.

 

Enjoy it, cause it’s not happening again!

https://youtu.be/ZzkThW4d-ac

 

Again, I’m not crying, you’re crying…

 

After that totally kickass moment, came Def Leppard! Not only did they play “Rock of Ages” with the Foo Fighters, but they brought out Miley Cyrus to sing on “Photograph.” Now, if you’re thinking Miley Cyrus is an odd choice, she’s actually not. Miley is the Hawkins’s family neighbor, and Taylor had left her a voicemail that she would totally rock singing “Photograph,” so she just did.

Also, did you peep Violet Grohl singing background vocals? Yup.

Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee of Motley Crue were the next up with “Live Wire” and “Home Sweet Home.” Tommy had posted a pic of him and Shane together the other day (you can check that out in my pre-show blog from the other day here).

Here’s just a little snippet of “Home Sweet Home.”

 

And the full from the backside…that sounds wrong…

After the Crue was Elliot Easton from The Cars. He along with Josh Homme played a couple Cars songs with the Foo Fighters. It’s not great video, but here you go…”Shake It Up” and “Just What I Needed”

Now, this performance was another one of my favorites. Nancy Wilson of Heart and P!nk. P!nk is abso-fucking-lutely amazing! She can sing a damn Heart song. Ho-ly shit!

This is just a partial video and I’m sharing it because of the audio quality. I have a full video of the song that I’ll add as well, but the quality isn’t as great.

Here’s the other version. Either way…Damn!

Basically, ever single song P!nk was involved in for this concert, just assume I loved it, because I did. Woman can SING!

Stewart Copeland of The Police. His words about Taylor in the bios have been the most poignant for me. Again, I shared them in the last blog. I love both of these Police songs. They are two of my favorites, so I love that they are the two that he wanted to do for Taylor. “Next to You” and “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.” I’m assuming they must have been two of Taylor’s favorites too.

Ok, so this video is from behind (that’s what she said), but it does have both songs. Unfortunately whoever filmed it also had a ginormous curtain in their way. The person did switch to the video screen a lot, so there’s that. Jon Davison, who has been singing for Yes the last 10 years joined to sing on “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and it’s just fantastic!

It is well known that when Dave and Taylor met, Taylor was the touring drummer for Alanis Morissette. I had read a piece right after Taylor passed (I wish I could remember where so I could link it) about Dave and Taylor’s friendship that talked about when they met and their immediate bond and brotherhood. Apparently Alanis had recognized it and asked Taylor when he would be leaving her to go join Dave and the Foo Fighters. She saw it, she knew, and knew that playing Dave and the Foo was where Taylor belonged.

 

 

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Here’s Alanis Morissette with Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums and Chad Chaney on bass.

The pic of Taylor and Alanis after they were done…

Ok, next up was Sebastian Bach, GEEZER BUTLER, and Lars Ulrich. You can’t honor Taylor and his love of music without playing Black Sabbath!

https://youtu.be/5n_jbIQy5-U

 

Alright, let’s talk about Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee from Rush, shall we? Jack freakin Black came out to introduce them.

 

In fact, both members of Tenacious D were there:

Then Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson used a battery of three amazing drummers to honor both Taylor and Neil Peart: Dave Grohl for “2112 Part 1: Overture,” Chad Smith for “Working Man,” and Danny Carey from Tool for “YYZ.”

 

https://youtu.be/zc6_agiW0Fw

Even the rock stars want to watch Rush…

 

 

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This is another ‘holy shit’ for me. The surviving members of Nirvana and Soundgarden performing “The Day I Tried To Live” and “Black Hole Sun.” I will always be a 90’s grunge kid at heart, so to see Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Pat Smear, Matt Cameron, and Kim Thayil on stage together was a bit of an emotional one. Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless joined them for vocals.

https://youtu.be/2YsI66Z4rMQ

 

 

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Queen was one of Taylor’s all-time favorite bands. Steward Copeland of The Police has said before that Taylor was a fanboy who made friends with his heroes, and that was true of Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen. He was so close with them that he was a part of their families. Hell, he’s Rufus Taylor’s Godfather. So it was a no brainer for Brian and Roger to be a part of both tribute shows, and to perform several songs.

 

I don’t want to add a ton of commentary other than to the last song, which I’ll get to. They did “We Will Rock You” with Justin Hawkins, “I’m In Love With My Car” with Rufus Taylor on drums and Roger singing, “Under Pressure” with Justin Hawkins, and “Somebody to Love” with P!nk and she absolutely blew the doors off of it (I know I said I wasn’t going to do a bunch of commentary, but I couldn’t help it), and “Love of My Life.”

Here’s “We Will Rock You”

“I’m In Love With My Car”

“Under Pressure”

“Somebody to Love” with P!nk

 

 

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“Love of My Life” is the final song that Brian May performed. Apparently he hadn’t planned on performing this song again since he did it at Wembley but Allison Hawkins, Taylor’s wife, asked him to. This had been their wedding song, and well, Brian explains what Allison asked him for…

 

 

Once again, I’m not sobbing. You’re sobbing.

Want a view with Taylor’s hawk? I aim to please…

 

 

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It’s ok. I’m sobbing again too.

Now for the Foo Fighters portion of the festivities!

“All My Life” was first with Josh Freese on drums!

“The Pretender” with P!nk and Jon Theodore

 

 

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“Walk” with Travis Barker

“Low” with Matt Cameron

“This Is A Call” with Brad Wilk from Rage Against The Machine

They brought Dave Chappelle out to cover Radiohead’s “Creep.” Watch for Dave Grohl. You’ll know what I’m talking about.

Pat from Weezer was on drums for that one too.

Next was “Run” with Omar Hakim.

“Best of You” with Rufus Taylor

This was one of the comments on the post for the video for “Best of You,” that I thought was worth sharing: “I was there last night, on the other side, with binocs, and I could see a bunch of the family and musicians watching from the side stage. And what you didn’t see, at 4:30, was one proud dad watching his son absolutely destroy. Roger’s face ran the gamut of watching Rufus, put all that emotion and fury into that. and then Roger was so proud, and squeezing his wife(?) and watching Rufus keep taking it to another level. And next to him is Stewart, Lars, Chad, Sebastian, all going through the same thing.. Damn. what a sight. What a night.”

This was where Shane Hawkin’s played with the guys on “My Hero” and “I’ll Stick Around.” Both of those are all the way up top!

It was very fitting to, again, end the night with “Everlong,” and with Taylor’s other best friend Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers behind the kit. Taylor is Chad’s son’s Godfather. Shane is good friends with Beckett.

And just because I love the view with the Hawk…

I will rap up this ridiculously long post with some posts from the end of the night from a couple of the artists, Matt Pinfield (who has been in the industry forever), and (of course) my beloved Foo.

 

 

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