Foo Fighters Promise to Visit Italian Town After Viral Video
Dave Grohl has promised to bring the Foo Fighters to Cesena, Italy after a video showing 1,000 Italian musicians performing the group’s “Learn to Fly” in unison went viral. 350 guitarists, 250 singers, 250 drummers and 150 bassists all banded together for the Cesena spectacle, which already racked up over 15 million views on YouTube in just three days.
Grohl was so moved by the performance that he quickly recorded a video utilizing the very little Italian he spoke to promise the people of Cesena that Foo Fighters would come there eventually, The Guardian reports. “We’re coming, I swear,” Grohl said in Italian. “We will see each other soon.”
Organizer Fabio Zaffagnini began the crowdfunding campaign to convince Foo Fighters to play in Cesena in May 2014. After raising nearly $50,000, Zaffagnini sifted through thousands of audition videos to assemble his “Rockin 1000” group at Cesena’s Hippodrome Park. That mega band was then put under the guidance of composer Marco Sabiu, who previously worked with Ennio Morricone and Luciano Pavarotti.
“Italy’s a country where dreams cannot easily come true, but it’s a land of passion and creativity,” Zaffagnini says in the video. “What we did here is just a huge, huge miracle… Our call is to ask you, the Foo Fighters, to come and play for us, to come and play in here, to give a concert to all of us in Cesena.”
As for when the Cesena visit could take place, Foo Fighters have a pair of Italy tour dates later this year: November 13th at Casalecchio Di Reno’s Unipol Arena and November 14th at Turin’s Palaolimpico Torino. While Turin is four hours away from Cesena, Casalecchio Di Reno is just an hour’s drive from the town. (Zaffagnini’s crowdfunding campaign to bring Foo Fighters to the region kicked off before the band announced a 2015 European tour that coincidentally had a near-by stop.)