Foo Fighters pull Quebec show after four songs due to storm: ‘Mother nature always wins’

The set lasted for just twenty minutes

Foo Fighters were forced to scrap their show on Saturday night (July 11) in Quebec City due to bad weather.

The US band recently kicked off their North American tour after cancelling their UK arena shows and Glastonbury headline set due to frontman Dave Grohl’s broken leg.

The humid weather had built throughout the day at Festival d’Été but the festival site on the Canadian city’s Plains Of Abraham remained dry right up until the end of the preceding band’s set, Foo Fighters’ current North American support act Royal Blood.

Advertisement

Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr had foreseen the danger during the duo’s performance. Following ‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’ he said to the 80,000 strong audience that, “If you look behind you, you’ll see lightning filling the skies. First you’ll see the lightning, then you’ll hear the thunder.”

The storm hit shortly after Foo Fighters’ front-of-stage curtain was unveiled, strong winds and battering rain threatening to whip it away before the band’s gear was unveiled.

The set began with Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl seated on his bespoke, guitar-decorated throne. Despite being pounded by the rain, Grohl was in confident mood as the band opened with ‘Everlong’, attacking his guitar as his good, left leg twitched to the music.

“Let me tell you,” he announced during ‘Monkey Wrench’. “I don’t care about this (his plaster cast), I don’t care about that (the rain). All I care about is you and to make sure you have a great time, so tonight we’re gonna play a Foo Fighters show. You know what that is? The Foo Fighters like to play for a long time and we’re gonna play all fucking night!”

Although Festival d’Été de Québec proudly boasts the largest – and one of the safest – stages in North America, the storm increased in power quickly. As thunder rolled, forked lightning flashed overhead and strong winds threatened to topple the band’s equipment, Foo Fighters were forced to leave the stage after ‘Sonic Highways’ track ‘Something From Nothing’.

“You guys, I’m sorry,” Grohl apologised, “It’s just not safe. We gotta take a break.”

Advertisement

The drenched audience took the band’s initial absence in their stride, some members passing the time by crowdsurfing, others cheering each new flash of lightning above the stage, but after 20 minutes an announcement was made (in French, the official language of the region) that Foo Fighters would not be able to continue their set.

The band performed only four songs in total: ‘Everlong’ ‘Monkey Wrench’, ‘Learn to Fly’ and ‘Something From Nothing’.

Foo Fighters later took to Twitter to apologise to fans for the show’s cancellation. They wrote: “Quebec City, we’ll be back…Mother Nature always wins”. See tweet below.

Festival d’Été de Québec continues for another week, with headliners including The Rolling Stones, Megadeth and Nickelback.

Dave Grohl recently revealed that he was “high as a fucking kite” on painkillers when he designed the giant throne he performed from when his band made their live return in Washington DC.

Foo Fighters returned to the stage on Saturday night (July 4) for a 20th anniversary concert at the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium, their first outing since Grohl’s injury.

Grohl broke his leg when he fell off the stage at a show in Gothenburg, Sweden on June 12, later finishing the show despite his pain.

You May Also Like

Advertisement

TRENDING

Advertisement

More Stories