Highlights From The Second Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert In LA
Last night, the second Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert was held at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, and it was another absolutely phenomenal evening of rock n' roll with a dream lineup put together to honor a legend.
Unfortunately, there was no official stream for the event, but I caught a blurry/laggy YouTube stream of a Tik Tok stream and powered through til it concluded at almost 4am EST. Here are the highlights.
Violet Grohl opened the show with a beautiful rendition of 'Hallalujah'....
....and then Joan Jett & Travis Barker blew the doors off with Forum early along with the Foo Fighters....
Chevy Metal, Taylor's cover band, performed 'Heroes' with Kesha when she had an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction on stage….
She played it off well and embraced it, though, saying “Taylor would have loved that my tits just fell out” after the song.
Justin Hawkins of The Darkness joined Taylor's side-group 'The Coattail Riders' once again for a great short set of Taylor's solo songs, and then they wrapped it up with Rufus Taylor joining for a performance of 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love'….
Like the Wembley Stadium concert, James Gang/Them Crooked Vultures/Mark Ronson/Wolfgang Van Halen all performed short great sets….
Def Leppard & Miley Cyrus tore the house down together with a kickass rendition of 'Photograph' that I want an officially released version of ASAP….
Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe did 'Live Wire' and 'Home Sweet Home' with Dave Grohl/Chris Shifflett of the Foo Fighters….
Nancy Wilson & P!nk did 'Barracuda' with the Foo Fighters and they were AWESOME. Nancy Wilson is 68 years old and still has the stage presence of someone in her 20s or 30s. All time legend.
Fun Fact: Nancy Wilson worked on all of the music for 'Almost Famous'. She was married to Cameron Crowe.
Alanis Morissette (who Taylor Hawkins played drums for on tour before joining the Foo Fighters in 1997) did 'You Oughta Know' with the Foo Fighters and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as her backing band, and had the rock n' roll loving crowd singing as loud as they were all night….
RUSH performed with a trio of MONSTERS on the drums in Dave Grohl, Chad Smith, and Danny Carey of Tool….
In a really special moment, the surviving members of Soundgarden/Nirvana took the stage as a grunge supergroup and did 'The Day I Tried To Live' and 'Black Hole Sun' with Taylor Momsen on lead vocals….
Queen did their set from Wembley with a couple new vocalists in Justin Hawkins on 'We Will Rock You' (because Luke from The Struts unfortunately got COVID last week) and P!nk on 'Somebody To Love'….
….and then the Foo Fighters closed the show out with an amazing set that consisted of the following songs/drummers:
1. "All My Life" (with Josh Freese)
2. "The Pretender" (with P!nk and Jon Theodore from Queens of the Stone Age)
3. "Walk" (with Travis Barker)
4. "Low" (with Matt Cameron from Soundgarden/Pearl Jam)
5. "This Is A Call" (with Brad Wilk from Rage Against The Machine)
6. "The Sky Is a Neighborhood" (with Pat Wilson from Weezer)
7. "Creep" (Radiohead cover, with Dave Chapelle and Pat Wilson from Weezer)
8. "Run" (with Omar Hakim)
9. "Best Of You" (with Rufus Taylor from The Darkness)
10. "My Hero" (with Shane Hawkins)
11. "I'll Stick Around" (with Shane Hawkins)
12. "Everlong" (with Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers)
It was full of great moments like P!nk joining Foo for 'The Pretender'….
….the extremely emotional version of 'Walk' Dave screamed the bridge of from his gut, the rarely performed 'Low' with Matt Cameron….
….Brad Walk from Rage SMASHING 'This Is A Call', Dave Chappelle doing 'Creep' with Foo yet again….
….Rufus Taylor playing 'Best Of You' FLAWLESSLY while breaking down on the kit….
….and of course, 16-year-old Shane fucking Hawkins crushing not only 'My Hero', but Foo Fighters classic 'I'll Stick Around'….
I saw someone say that the Wembley Stadium show felt like a time for greiving, and that the LA show felt like a time for celebrating, and I couldn't agree more. I can't wait for this show to be officially released in high quality to watch it all over again.