Rock & roll's resident nice guy Dave Grohl brought his fans a treat yet again on December 9th in Asheville, North Carolina with a surprise concert at the city's Orange Peel venue, planned just hours after the Foo Fighters frontman discovered he was snowed in following the Warren Haynes 30th Christmas Jam the previous night. An hour after the announcement of the impromptu performance was made at 4pm, the venue was sold out of the $10 tickets.
The "band" took the stage at 8:30 p.mm with Grohl, Haynes, and members of Queens of the Stone Age, Jane's Addiction, and producer Greg Kurstin in tow to play an encore of "Play," Grohl's 23-minute instrumental track originally recorded as a solo project with him taking on the seven different instruments contained therein.
Transitioning next into a set of rock classics including Led Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You" and Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels," the collective then shocked fans by taking on the heartbreaking Nirvana standard "All Apologies." Despite resurrecting several Nirvana songs with various artists over the past few years, Grohl had reservations about that particular track and told Rolling Stone, "That used to be thin ice and delicate ground for a long time, for good reason. That's something that had to be handled gently ... When he [Haynes] mentioned that song, my initial reaction was, 'I can't do that. I shouldn't do that.' But then I think about the people that the song means so much to and has been a part of their lives — that joy and love should be shared."
As seen in the video above, the audience joined in the emotional sing-a-long near the end of the tune, chiming in on the repeating end line, "All we are is all we are." The former Nirvana drummer claimed he was "crying his eyes out onstage trying to keep it together ...what a beautiful moment. And who am I to keep people from that beautiful moment?"
