AC/DC has announced that Foo Fighters will step in for the Pretty Reckless as the opening act for the band’s upcoming show in St. Louis, Missouri. The change marks a one-night-only pairing of two of rock’s most prominent live acts.
The announcement detailed how Foo Fighters will briefly step away from their own tour to fill in for their friends in St. Louis.
“Foo Fighters join AC/DC as special guests for one night only in St. Louis, MO,” the announcement read. “Foo Fighters are taking a special one-off detour from their Take Cover global stadium tour to fill in for their friends, The Pretty Reckless, as special guests of AC/DC for one night only in St. Louis.”
“The performance brings two generations of rock’s biggest live acts together for a one-nigh-only event, with the Foo Fighters opening for the band’s St. Louis tour stop.”
Following the announcement, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl shared a personal statement reflecting on what AC/DC has meant to him since childhood. He recalled the moment their live performance first shaped his approach to music.
“I remember it like it was yesterday…. It was AC/DC’s 1980 concert film Let There Be Rock that truly introduced me to the raw, primal power of rock and roll performance for the first time,” Grohl said. “Sure, I had Beatles records, I had KISS posters, I had an old, broken acoustic guitar with a few strings that I would pretend to play in front of the hallway closet mirror when no one was home, but it wasn’t until that fateful night at the tender age of eleven years old that my best friend, Larry Hinkle and I went downtown to the Uptown Theater in Washington D.C. and actually witnessed it on full display.”
Grohl went on to describe the lasting impact that performance had on him.
“Watching from the edge of my seat the entire time, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before,” he continued. “How could five human beings conjure and possess such intensity onstage with just their instruments and do so with such swagger, such groove….and such danger? My mind was blown. Melted. Changed forever. And my heart felt like it might explode with passion and inspiration.”
He then explained how the experience set a new personal standard for performing live.
“From that night on, the bar was set exceptionally high,” Grohl said. “If you were a drummer and you didn’t have to change your snare drum between songs from pummeling it to splinters, you weren’t hitting it hard enough. If you were a guitarist and you didn’t need oxygen on the side of the stage between solos, you weren’t playing hard enough. If you were a frontman in a band and you weren’t drenched in sweat by the end of the show, you weren’t giving the audience what they deserve. It’s safe to say that if it weren’t for this movie, this band and their decades of timeless anthems, I surely would have approached my life in music from a different perspective.”
Grohl closed his statement by tying his own onstage energy directly back to AC/DC’s influence.
“So, if you have ever seen me beat the living shit out of a drum set or run from side to side of a stage drenched in sweat after hours of hammering my guitar to pieces, you’ll now understand why,” he said. “All I have ever wanted was to someday live up to the awe inspiring fury of AC/DC, live onstage — an impossible task, by the way.”
The one-night pairing will take place during AC/DC’s tour stop in St. Louis. The circumstances behind the swap shed further light on just how tightly both bands’ touring schedules are packed this year.
The St. Louis show falls on September 8 at The Dome at America’s Center, one stop on AC/DC’s expansive Power Up Tour run through North America. The Pretty Reckless, who have served as the tour’s regular support act, are unavailable that particular night, opening the door for Foo Fighters to step in as a one-off replacement.
For Foo Fighters, the St. Louis detour comes in the middle of their own Take Cover global stadium tour, which has kept the band on the road through a string of major venues this summer. The tour has already taken Grohl and company through stops in Toronto, Detroit, Chicago and Nashville. A marathon three-hour performance in Washington, D.C. drew particular attention for its sheer length and intensity.
Squeezing a one-night appearance with AC/DC into that schedule underscores how significant the invitation was for Foo Fighters, given the demands of headlining their own stadium run simultaneously. The band’s willingness to make the detour speaks to the depth of the relationship between the two acts and the personal history Grohl has long described with AC/DC’s music, making the St. Louis stop a rare occasion where fans will see one of rock’s biggest touring acts open for the band that shaped Grohl’s own approach to performing live.
