Who doesn’t love the Foo Fighters?
It’s hard not to be charmed by the hilarious and legendary Dave Grohl, who’s widely known as “The Nicest Man in Rock.” Not to mention the everlasting rock classics that impress us every time the band releases a new album.
You may think you’re a top fan, but that title belongs to a group of 1,000 people living in Italy.
Cesena is a small city situated between the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea. The population is less than 100,000, so as you can imagine, they don’t have any massive performance venues.
When famous musicians tour through Italy, they usually hit the big cities like Milan, Rome or maybe one of the summer festivals in smaller cities like Sicily or Tuscany—but never Cesena.
Still, local Foo Fighters fans wanted to change that. Instead of taking to Twitter to inundate the band members with requests to come and perform, they got creative. They got 1,000 of the best musicians from across the country to come to Cesena and play a giant cover of the band’s hit songs, “Learn to Fly.”
Needless to say, it was epic.
One very enthusiastic conductor lead 999 other musicians who all managed to sing, drum and play guitar in time to the rock classic.
Who would have thought this many drummers could work together in unison?
It’s such a hard thing to get right—I mean, that’s why there’s almost always one drummer per band. But not these guys!
For those who don’t know, Grohl got his start as the drummer for Nirvana and is a musical hero to many.
Obviously, all the singers had a fun time sharing microphones (pre-COVID, don’t worry), singing their hearts out.
If you haven’t sung “Learn to Fly” at the top of your lungs in the shower or while driving, you haven’t lived.
The whole thing was organized by Fabio Zaffagnini, who calls himself a dreamer.
In this case, his dream came true!
At the end of the show, Zaffagnini gave an impassioned plea:
“Our call is to ask you, The Foo Fighters, to come and play for us. Come and play here and give a concert to all of us in Cesena.”
The musicians all went wild, screaming and making noise and chanting to let the band know how much they wanted to see them come to Cesena.
The performance did make its way to Grohl, who got hundreds of texts and social media messages from friends urging him to watch it.
He said he cried when he finally saw the video…and honestly, we can see why!
Grohl graciously responded—and not just in his native language, but in Italian!
One helpful Facebook user translated for us:
“Hi, Cesena! I am David, hello. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian. Only a little, a little. That video — but how beautiful! Very beautiful. Thank you very much [literally: a thousand thanks]. We are arriving [coming], I promise. We’ll see each other soon. Thank you very much. I love you. Bye.”
We don’t speak Italian, but he seems pretty good for a non-native speaker! Even better was the fact that he stuck to his words.
The Foo Fighters made it happen! They performed just four months after the video “invite” was posted on YouTube.
We know at least 1,000 adoring fans showed up for this show of a lifetime.
Grohl was sure to thank the Rockin’ 1000 for their incredible video:
“We write songs, and then we make the record and we don’t think about the rest of the world. And then to see you people, singing our song for the whole f***ing world, to me, it was the greatest moment of my life.”
The video racked up more than 53 million views, and has inspired so many people around the world.
Even five years later, during this terrible pandemic, viewers are rediscovering this story and its uplifting spirit.
Some commenters had suggestions for how we could bring this to the States…we don’t know about you, but we’re in!
Watch the incredible performance for yourself below—and prepare to get a little teary-eyed!
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