Credit: Hayley MaddenFoo Fighters begin their North American Sonic Highways tour this holiday weekend with a big July 4 blowout at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. The massive trek will keep the band busy for a while, as it lasts all the way into October.
"We're just keeping our heads down and kinda going one day at a time," bassist Nate Mendel tells ABC Radio. "Because if you look at the entire schedule it's a bit daunting."
What makes the tour even more daunting is the fact that Dave Grohl is recovering from a broken leg, which he suffered after falling off the stage at a Foo Fighters show in Sweden on June 12. The band was forced to cancel the remainder of their European tour, including a headlining spot at Glastonbury, and the July 4 show will be Grohl's first show back since the injury.
While Grohl will be performing with metal screws in his leg for the first time, Foo Fighters will be checking off another "first" on this tour when they play stadiums such as RFK, Citi Field and Fenway Park.
"We're playing some different venues than we have before," says Mendel, who spoke with ABC Radio before Grohl's injury. "We've been doing arenas for the last few years and there's going to be some baseball stadium things [on this tour], that's kind of a shift for us. So I think we're kinda focused on those big shows, because we haven't done those in America before."
The July 4 show at RFK Stadium will feature performances from Heart, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, blues guitarist Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr. and rapper LL Cool J, among others. For Foo Fighters' next show, July 6 in Camden, New Jersey, Royal Blood will join the tour as the opening band.
"They're a good band," Mendel says of the British duo. "That's really what it comes down to, I think the people that like our band will enjoy them. And that's really what you look for in an opening band: somebody that you're excited to see, someone you want to meet because they're doing cool music, and somebody that's gonna be interesting for the fans of your band."
Royal Blood's run with Foo Fighters will conclude August 25 in Pittsburgh. As Mendel tells ABC Radio, picking Royal Blood was a simple choice for the Foos to make.
"There's not a lot of rock bands, that style of music is not in its salad day," he says. "You don't have a lot to choose from, they're one of the few really good rock bands that are out right now."
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.