ABOVE: Watch as Brian (with a little help from the Foo Fighters) crushes “Tom Sawyer” by Rush at a concert in Edmonton
TORONTO – For anyone who’s ever sang a song during karaoke night at the local bar and imagined they were onstage in front of 20,000 people – this one’s for you.
During a concert in Edmonton Wednesday night, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl made one fan’s rock and roll fantasy a reality when he invited him out of the crowd, and turned his microphone over to him for a song.
The song in question? “Tom Sawyer” by classic Canadian rock band Rush.
It started when Grohl, seated on a “rock throne” equal parts Game of Thrones and Mad Max: Fury Road on account of the cast on his leg, asked if anyone in the crowd knew the lyrics to the song.
That’s when Brian Roberts, a field service technician for a local Edmonton construction company, put up his hand.
Now “Tom Sawyer” isn’t the easiest song in the world to cover (not everyone has Geddy Lee’s falsetto, after all), something Grohl joked about as Roberts took the stage.
“You’re trying to tell me your big a** can hit those high notes?” he joked as the crowd egged Brian on. When he nodded that he could, Grohl welcomed him onstage with the band.
“Welcome to my nightmare,” Grohl said as he handed his microphone over to him.
But never fear, rock fans: Roberts turned out a more-than-respectable cover of the iconic tune, with the raucous Edmonton crowd backing him up every step of the way.
“It was a very epic experience,” Roberts later told CBC News. “I think I mixed some of the lyrics up there, but I just about nailed ‘er bang on.”
This isn’t from the first time the Foo Fighters have dabbled in Rush’s discography: the band are huge fans of the Canadian rock outfit and even played a show as them, in character, during their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
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