{"id":351321,"date":"2026-02-23T01:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/351321\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T01:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:15:08","slug":"grohl-and-company-bring-a-surreally-euphoric-set-to-kerry-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/351321\/","title":{"rendered":"Grohl and company bring a surreally euphoric set to Kerry \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the death of his Nirvana<\/a> bandmate Kurt Cobain<\/a>, Dave Grohl<\/a> escaped to Kerry<\/a> to grieve and to escape.<\/p>\n

He drove the Ring of Kerry and, while stopping to pick up a teenage hitchhiker, saw Kurt\u2019s face on the boy\u2019s t-shirt. He realised he could never outrun his past, returned to the States and started Foo Fighters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Grohl\u2019s manager John Silva recently rang promoter Philip King to suggest Foo Fighters play at St James Church in Dingle<\/a> and have it filmed for Other Voices<\/a>, King said: \u201cYou know it only seats around 80 people?\u201d<\/p>\n

But now it\u2019s happening, kicking off the 25th year anniversary of the festival. And word has got out. Media outlets have been sniffing around and some canny fans spotted a Foo Fighters flight case on Main Street and put it online. (Earlier on Sunday the band also announced and then sold out another surprise gig in Dublin\u2019s Academy for Monday night).<\/p>\n

\"FooFoo Fighters in St James’ Church. Photograph Nick Bradshaw \"GrohlGrohl on stage on Sunday night. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Nobody knows quite what to believe as they enter the church. \u201cThis isn\u2019t right,\u201d says a young fan named Slash Lawless, a little overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Her old schoolteacher works with Other Voices and called her because she remembered she had Foo Fighters patches on her bag. She can\u2019t believe it\u2019s happening (later she and her friend snaffle up a set list, drumsticks and some plectrums from the stage).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou kind of won\u2019t believe it until you see them,\u201d Other Voices presenter MayKay tells the crowd.<\/p>\n

And then Dave Grohl sticks his head out the door at the side of the vestry, as if that\u2019s a normal thing for Dave Grohl to be doing in a tiny church in Kerry.<\/p>\n

\"GrohlGrohl among the crowd. Photograph Nick Bradshaw \"FooFoo Fighters in Dingle. Photograph Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

In minutes he and his band are launching into A320 (a rarity from the 1998 Godzilla soundtrack), a prog-grunge triple guitar assault from Grohl, Chris Shiflett and touring guitarist Jason Falkner (Falkner is filling in for Pat Smear who recently broke his leg \u201cwhile gardening\u201d; Smear\u2019s visage is plastered on Ilan Rubin\u2019s bass drum).<\/p>\n

There are no concessions made to the intimacy of the setting. Grohl, bespectacled and grizzled, screams into the mic and sticks his foot on the monitor and wanders up and down the aisle of the church and gets everyone to sing the chorus of My Hero (he cracks up at one woman\u2019s camp emoting).<\/p>\n

Next to me, Augustus Bouzius and Jools Jones \u2013 two burly rockers from Cork \u2013 yell every chorus. \u201cThis is nuts,\u201d says Bouzius sporadically.<\/p>\n

Foo Fighters play punky new songs \u2013 Of All People and My Favorite Toy \u2013 from their forthcoming album. They play poptastic old classics like Everlong and they segue from No Son of Mine into Motorhead\u2019s Ace of Spades. <\/p>\n

It feels surreally euphoric to experience Foo Fighters unfiltered in this tiny, vibrating, possibly now structurally-damaged chapel.<\/p>\n

At one point Grohl asks who has seen them play before and one person shouts \u201cI saw Nirvana!\u201d<\/p>\n

Grohl laughs. \u201cHow do your fifties feel to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my first gig!\u201d says the man. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look at you now,\u201d says Grohl, looking touched, before launching into the cacophonous genius of the Best of You, in the process, making the church feel like the smallest stadium in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the death of his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl escaped to Kerry to grieve and to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[63099,43386,18,117,33795,19,17,957,63097,33793,101861],"class_list":["post-351321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dave-grohl","tag-dingle","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-foo-fighters","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerry","tag-kurt-cobain","tag-nirvana","tag-other-voices"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116117302938650440","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}