Foo Fighters have pretty much seen it all over their 20-year career, but over the summer, the band took part in something Dave Grohl calls "the craziest thing [we've] ever done": they played a show at the historic Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The performance was filmed for an episode of the PBS series Landmarks Live in Concert, premiering tonight, November 10.
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, who hosts the series, tells ABC Radio that even the mighty Foos were nervous to play at the ancient landmark.
"You see them kind of wide-eyed on the first song," Smith says of Grohl and company. "Certainly when Dave walks out, he's just like, 'Whoa!'"
Prior to the performance, Smith says the Foos were particularly worried about damaging the structure, since, as the drummer puts it, the Acropolis "wasn't made for Marshall amps and drums and everything else."
"The guys in the band were like, 'Is this gonna be OK? Is it gonna come crumbling down?'" Smith remembers. "I'm like, 'I hope not! I don't think so!'"
Despite any jitters regarding potential historical property damage, Smith says Foo Fighters delivered a "magical" performance.
"[The moment] was not lost on those guys, they really in the spirit of it," Smith says. "It was great."
Future episodes of Landmarks Live in Concert include performances by Kings of Leon, Prophets of Rage, and possibly the Chili Peppers themselves, who hope to play Cuba.
"We all wanna play outside Havana somewhere -- what a fantastic culture that place [has]," Smith says, adding, "But they don't like letting in American rock bands for some reason!"
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