Dave Grohl Says Crowdsourced Shows May ‘Change the Game’ of Touring
Dave Grohl said the fan-orchestrated and crowdfunded concert the Foo Fighters agreed to play in Richmond, Virginia could be the future of how bands plan their tours in a new interview with South African radio station 5FM.
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“I’m telling you, it could become the way that bands decide where they want to play,” Grohl said. “It’s a fun thing; it sort of changes the game. For the past 20 years we always decided who we’re going to play with and where we’re going to play. But now, if we hear that people want us to come somewhere, maybe we’ll come there.”
The Crowdtilt Open campaign was the brainchild of Andrew Goldin, a freelance creative director and copywriter, who wanted to bring the Foo Fighters back to Richmond for the first time since 1998. Goldin and his cohorts, Brig White, John McAdorey and Lucas Krost, set a goal of selling 1,400 tickets at $50 each, promising donors they would only be charged if the concert sold out, and that their money would be returned if the band didn’t agree to play.
Thanks to a slew of eager fans and local businesses like Brown’s Volkswagen and Sugar Shack Donuts — who each donated $5,000 to the campaign and plan on giving away all their tickets — not only did the Foo Fighters hear about the campaign, they agreed to play the show, writing on Twitter, “See ya soon…let’s have a good time.”
While a date or venue for the Richmond gig have yet to be announced, the show is in line with Grohl’s hopes for the Foo Fighters’ upcoming tour, which includes their first-ever dates in South Africa this December. “We’ve been a band for 20 years and it’s time for us to start going to the places we’ve never been,” he told 5FM. “I love all of the places that we’ve been, and all over the world we’ve built these amazing fan base audiences, but I love going to places we’ve never been.”
Along with criss-crossing the globe, the Foo Fighters plan to release their new, as-yet-untitled album this November. The LP’s release will be accompanied by a new documentary series for HBO, Sonic Highways, which chronicled the creation of the new Foo Fighters album as they recorded in famous studios across the U.S. According to Grohl, the band collaborated with a number of musicians throughout the recording process including Cheap Trick‘s Rick Nielsen, Gary Clark Jr., Joe Walsh, Carrie Underwood, Chuck D and Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes.