Dave Grohl recalled the experience of jamming with Prince, and called it a “dream fulfilled” – even thought it didn’t turn out the way he’d expected.

In the latest addition to his Dave’s True Stories Instagram account, Grohl told how he’d attended one of Prince’s residency shows in Los Angeles in 2011, and then gone backstage to meet him. That led to an invitation to perform together, with Prince asking Grohl, “How about next Friday?”

“It was Prince,” the Foo Fighters leader wrote. “And he was asking me to jam. It was a proposition that I had wished for my entire adult life, but never in my wildest dreams imagined possible. … It took every ounce of my being not to drop to my knees right then and there and assume the classic Wayne and Garth ‘We’re not worthy!’ ritual. ... I somehow maintained a thread of composure, thanked him for an amazing night, and floated back to my friends in the other room with those four words still echoing in my brain. The countdown began.”

Grohl admitted he was usually “that guy whose phone battery is always hovering between four and 11 percent. … I’m hopelessly teetering on shutdown at all times.” Things were different that week: “For those seven days, I didn’t let that motherfucker dip below 100 percent for one hot second. Ringer on 10. Vibrate on 'stun.' Never more than three feet from a wall socket. I literally slept with that thing on my chest.” He worried about whether Prince would keep the invitation, but remained “amazed that I was even a blip on his purple radar.”

Grohl paused to explain that Prince performing part of the Foo Fighters hit “Best of You” at the 2007 Super Bowl halftime show was his “proudest musical achievement” and that he watched it behind tears, hours after the live broadcast. He didn't see it live because he “almost wrote the whole thing off as something that was too good to be true. ... I think I’ve learned over the years not to expect much, just to be happy with what you’ve got.”

Returning to the night in 2011 when he was to play with Prince, Grohl explained the uncertainty of turning up with no idea what to expect, calling it a “virtual trust fall off the Grand Canyon.” He was onstage in an empty venue when Prince appeared and asked him to play drums. Grohl said Prince was “on me like glue,” playing bass against his drumming, which he described as “a moment divine … and not a soul in sight to witness it.”

Then Prince suggested they jam on the Led Zeppelin classic “Whole Lotta Love” with his band, an experience Grohl enjoyed immensely. “Prince turned to me, smiled and said, ‘We should do that!’" he recalled. "‘Yes! Yes, Prince! We should do that!’ ‘How about next Friday?’ he said.”

Grohl had previously mentioned the anticipation of performing in front of Prince fans, but he didn’t note any disappointment at realizing that day’s adventure was over before any of them arrived. He didn’t go back the following week. "In a strange way, I didn’t need to," he said. "I had fulfilled a life dream, with no evidence of it to share with anyone, other than a memory that will stat with me forever.”

He said the pair met only once again, and nodded in passing. “We were lucky to have him while we did," Grohl said. "I miss him dearly.”

 

 

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