Watch Dave Grohl Reunite With Battle of the Bands Rival Onstage
Foo Fighters‘ Sonic Highways tour has witnessed a number of strange occurrences over the past few months: A shattered leg, a rickrolling of the Westboro Baptist Church, Foo fans covering Rush and onstage invites for Jewel and Dave Grohl’s doctor. However, at Foo Fighters‘ Memphis gig Wednesday night, Grohl once again raised the “Huh?” bar by bringing out musician and former classmate Chet Lott, who defeated Grohl in their ninth grade talent show while students at Alexandria, Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School, to help the band cover David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure,” Action News 5 reports.
Here is Dave telling the back story on the battle of the bands.
Posted by Chet Lott on Thursday, October 8, 2015
Grohl first relayed the backstory of the ninth grade Battle of the Bands to the crowd, revealing that he and his friends performed the theme from Footloose, but they were ultimately defeated by Lott. “Tonight, the man who beat me in the high school battle of the bands [is here] – don’t boo him, he’s a good man, and evidently a better musician than I am,” Grohl said. “Chet, get your ass up here.”
The onstage meet-up was a class reunion of sorts for Grohl and Lott, the son of former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott. The pair hadn’t seen each other since Foo Fighters opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the early Nineties, and the two shared a hug and briefly chatted before the performance. “You know what [Lott] just said? ‘We may have won the battle, but you won the war,'” Grohl told the crowd before joking to Lott, “Have a seat at the foot of my throne.”
Lott, Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins then split vocals on the 1981 hit. Lott, now a musician based in Lexington, Kentucky, gleefully posted video from his “15 minutes of fame” on his Facebook. Foo Fighters’ surprise-laden trek continues Friday night at the Austin City Limits Festival.