Foo Fighters End ‘Letterman’ Week With Top Ten List, ‘Something From Nothing’
The Foo Fighters‘ weeklong Late Show With David Letterman residency came to a close Friday night with the band participating in a Letterman staple: The reading of the Top Ten list. The subject: “Top Ten Things Foo Fighters Would Like To Say After Spending a Week at the Late Show.” “All in all, not a bad place to be quarantined,” guitarist Pat Smear joked, to which Letterman replied, “When you were a kid, did you get teased about ‘Pat Smear’?” But the real highlight comes when Smear admits what he’ll miss most about the Late Show is announcer Alan Kalter.
For their final Letterman performance, which aired just 30 minutes after the Sonic Highways premiere concluded on HBO, the Foo Fighters welcomed back Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen for the Chicago-inspired “Something For Nothing.” As we learned on the first episode of Sonic Highways, Nielsen also appears on the album version of the single, which was recorded at producer Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio.
Friday’s prerecorded performance wraps up what was a busy week for the Foo Fighters in the lead-up to the premiere of their HBO series. On Monday, the band linked up with Zac Brown for a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” The next night, Heart‘s Ann and Nancy Wilson joined the Foos for “Kick It Out.” Wednesday brought swamp rocker Tony Joe White and his “Polk Salad Annie” as well as a personal web exclusive introduced by Letterman. That was followed by Grohl returning to the drums and Taylor Hawkins taking lead for Cheap Trick’s “Stiff Competition” featuring Nielsen.
On top of all that, Grohl still found time to perform Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan tracks at photographer Danny Clinch’s book release party and then hightail it to the Windy City in time for Friday night’s post-Sonic Highways Cubby Bear gig.