Wolfgang Van Halen has stated that he was “nervous as hell” performing his late father’s songs at last year’s Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts.
Wolfgang has played three Van Halen songs — “On Fire”, “Hot For Teacher” and “Panama” — over the course of two concerts in September alongside Dave Grohl on bass, Josh Freese on drums and The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins on vocals.
Wolfgang recently reflected on the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in a new interview with Rock Sound conducted at this weekend’s Download festival in the United Kingdom. He said via Blabbermouth:
“Oh, man. I was nervous as hell. Taking away any emotional weight to it all, just performing with three musicians who I’ve loved my entire life and looked up to was crazy enough, but then you add the emotional weight of it all for Taylor. [It was] probably one of the only few times I’d ever really play any songs like that for Pop and for Taylor. Yeah, just an insane thing that I’ll never forget.”
Foo Fighters had celebrated Taylor Hawkins’ memory and music at a special gig in London on Saturday, September 3 last year. Hawkins, the band’s drummer since 1997, died in Bogotá, Colombia on March 25 last year. He was 50 years old. Foo Fighters performed for a couple of hours at Wembley Stadium for a special tribute show for the late band drummer Taylor Hawkins. ‘The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concerts’ also took place at LA’s Kia Forum on September 27. Josh Freese recently joined Foo Fighters as their new drummer.
