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Foo Fighters Bring Out Rick Astley And Rick-Roll 60,000 People At Reading Festival

Foo Fighters Bring Out Rick Astley And Rick-Roll 60,000 People At Reading Festival

Dave Grohl and the gang brought the 80s pop sensation out as a surprise

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

The Foo Fighters managed to pull off possibly the largest Rick-roll of all time at Reading Festival by bringing the man himself out to sing 'Never Gonna Give You Up' on stage in front of 60,000 people.

To be fair, they actually do this quite a bit, but this time was probably the largest scale instance.

You see, the Foo Fighters realised a while back that the chords to Rick Astley's classic 80s pop song are quite similar to those used in grunge classic 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', originally by Nirvana - who, of course, featured Foos frontman Dave Grohl on drums.

So, the crowd were teased into thinking that they were about to witness a rare instance of the Foo Fighters covering Nirvana, before Astley came bounding onto the stage and they realised they'd been Rick-rolled.

Not that anyone seemed to mind. In fact, the whole crowd went wild for Rick.

Grohl tried to sell the trick beforehand by harking back to Nirvana's breakout performance at Reading Festival way back in 1992.

He told the assembled thousands: "Some of you may know that the Reading Festival holds a very special place in my heart. This is the first big festival I ever played in my life when I was 22 in 1991. It was a long time ago.

"I thought tonight we'll do something special for you that pays tribute to a song that brings us way back in time. It's maybe the reason why I'm here tonight headlining the main stage. If you know it you can bounce around to it."

PA

The band then launched into the first few bars of the hit, from Nirvana's classic album Nevermind, before a fresh-faced looking Astley leapt onto the stage.

That wasn't the only cover that Grohl and co managed to slip into their set. They also offered up their versions of AC/DC's 'Let There Be Rock' and Queen's 'Under Pressure'.

On top of that, they played a bit of 'Crazy Train' by Ozzy Osbourne and David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust'.

That, accompanied by the Foos massive back catalogue of stadium rock bangers, left everyone with a smile on their face.

Oh, and they even had a word for Rick later on in the set. Bizarrely, Grohl dedicated the song 'Big Me' to his unlikely pal Astley.

PA

He said: "You know what? I'm gonna sing this one to Rick Astley,

"Let me tell you something. You know all your f***ing badass rock and roll heroes that you've got? Those gunslinging, bad ass, rock and roll motherf***ers? They seem like the toughest people in the world.

"I'm not kidding, Rick Astley has bigger balls than those motherf***ers."

He continued: "Rick Astley's got balls the size of the f***ing London Eye, and I'm not kidding right now. That's why I love him, because of those big balls on Rick Astley. So I'm gonna sing a little love song to Rick right now."

In case you're not familiar with the concept of Rick-rolling, it started as an internet meme whereby Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' makes an unexpected appearance.

There was a time when you couldn't click on anything and be completely confident that you weren't about to hear Astley's pleasing baritone.

Now you can't even buy a ticket to a major music festival without getting Rick-rolled.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: UK News, Daily Ladness, Music, UK Entertainment, US Entertainment