August 25, 2008 15:33

'Foo Fighters secret gig' chaos at Reading Festival Foo Fighters Tickets

Thousands of fans hurl bottles and shoes at tiny Reading stage

Photo Gallery: Foo Fighters
Photo: Dean Chalkley

Rumours of a Foo Fighters secret gig yesterday (August 24) at the Reading Festival resulted in thousands of fans causing chaos in front of the BBC Introducing Stage.

A British punk band named The FF'ers were billed to be playing on the stage at 5pm (BST), causing rumours to spread around the site that the band name was a pseudonym for Dave Grohl's band.

By the time 5pm came around 3,000 fans had gathered around the small stage. When The FF'ers came on they were bottled by the angry fans, who were expecting to see the aforementioned US rockers play a secret show. The FF'ers had to abandon their set due to the chaos.

Despite the rumours of the secret show being scuppered by The FF'ers' brief appearance, most of the fans remained by the stage. The next band on, Underground Railroad, received a similar treatment to The FF'ers, with fans hurling mud, bottles and shoes at them.

The Parisian trio responded by playing 'NYC' in frenetic fashion, then began hurling the missiles back into the crowd. They were pulled off by security soon afterwards.

After announcers had calmed the situation by explaining that Foo Fighters were not going to play, Underground Railroad completed their set to around 500 fans who had remained to watch them.

"That was a scary and punky moment for us!" drummer/singer Raf Mura told NME.COM after his band’s performance.