Taylor Hawkins Tribute Show – Chad Smith Remembers Foo Fighters Drummer
The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert took place at Wembley Stadium yesterday (3 September) and featured performances from Liam Gallagher, Mark Ronson, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Supergrass, Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Blink-182’s Travis Barker, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Kesha, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and more.
In a video message screened between performances, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith shared a heartwarming story about his friend, “I’d love to tell a story of one of Taylor and I’s many escapades, but those probably wouldn’t be appropriate for this. So I wanna tell you one that warms my heart.
Meet the friends and family joining Foo Fighters for the #taylorhawkinstribute concert here: https://t.co/TjqHvQuG7r pic.twitter.com/z7TwpIp628
— Foo Fighters (@foofighters) September 1, 2022
“The 606 studio those guys have, the Foo Fighters – around the corner is a music store called Guitar Centre. I think Dave [Grohl] and Taylor used to go in there all the time and see what’s going on and maybe get some stuff. Taylor would always bomb back to the drum room – the percussion section – and if there were little kids in there, wannabe drummers trying out stuff, he’d be in there and of course they’d be excited, like, ‘Oh my god, Taylor Hawkins is here, this is so cool.’
“One day, the manager came to the guy that ran the percussion section and said, ‘You know, I think something’s going on with TH’s credit card – there must be some fraud or something because I see thousands of dollars over months of charges and I’ve never seen Taylor buy anything ever here.
“The guy that worked the counter in the percussion section said, ‘No, they’re not fraud. Taylor would actually buy drum equipment, drum sets, sticks, cymbals, whatever was needed for any of the kids that he was hanging out with.
“He knew how important it was to have good stuff and he would just buy it for them and never tell anybody and wouldn’t tell the store. The kids would walk out with the stuff and that’s the kind of guy that Taylor Hawkins is and I love him and I miss him every day. I know he’s really happy about this right now so I love you guys.”