by Dave Grohl
I must say, I was a bit nervous. Not for the show, of course (that’s the easy part), but to see Sandi. It had been so long I couldn’t imagine that we would even recognize each other after all of the twists and turns our lives had taken over the years. What would she look like? What would she sound like? What would she wear? What would I wear? Hopefully someone would politely reintroduce us, and we would carry on with ridiculous nostalgia all night long until the houselights came up and we were forced to pour out the champagne and go our separate ways again, back to the people we had eventually become. Suffocating in childish anticipation, I scanned the crowded backstage hallways every few minutes to see if I could see her before she saw me, but she was nowhere to be found. My teenage insecurity began to rear its ugly head again after so many years. What if she declined the invitation? What if she didn’t want to see me? I didn’t think my heart could handle another heartbreak from Sandi. Even the oldest wounds can reopen, you know.
Courtesy of the author’s personal archives
And then, I saw her.
I looked up as she stepped into the dressing room and shot up from my chair. It was like seeing a ghost. I gasped. I couldn’t believe it—she looked exactly the fucking same (without the Jordache jeans and feathered hair, of course). Our eyes met and we both smiled as wide as the horizon, crashing into each other with a most long-overdue hug. The feeling now was obviously much different than those palpitations I’d once experienced by our lockers in the fluorescent-lit hallways of intermediate school, but there was a certain joy that you only feel when reunited with someone from your past, like some kind of reassurance that life really happened. We sat down and caught up for a bit, talking spouses and children and family, laughing at the trouble we used to get into, and doing a roll call of where all our old friends were now. The minutes flew by, but soon it was time for me to get ready to go play, so I asked Sandi to please stay after the show for a bit more catch-up over a beer or two. I ran out the door to write a set list and wait for the houselights to dim.
The roar of the audience as we hit the stage that night was the kind that can only be found at a hometown show. It was many thunderous decibels beyond any other gig on that tour, and it shook me to my core with emotion and pride. I had spent my childhood here, climbing trees, chewing tobacco, playing hooky, lighting fireworks, searching the creeks for crawfish, and spray-painting walls, so I knew these streets, these people, and they knew me. I played each chord that night with every ounce of my being to thank them for a lifetime of Kodachrome memories, returning the tidal wave of love that washed over me as we sang every song together. At one point, as I played a triumphant guitar solo from the lip of the stage to the sea of screaming faces, blazing the fretboard to a rapturous response, I looked down and saw Sandi standing there . . . in the exact same spot where she had been standing in the dream I had the night she broke my heart. I stopped and realized that I had vividly imagined this exact moment thirty years before as a thirteen-year-old boy, like a premonition, and now I was actually fucking living it! CRAZY AS IT MAY SEEM, MY TEENAGE ROCK AND ROLL DREAM HAD COME TRUE. With only one difference: Sandi wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably, consumed with regret that she had dumped me.
No.
She was smiling that amazing smile of hers, ice-blue eyes shining, with her middle finger in the air as she mouthed these immortal words . . .
“Fuck you, asshole!”
The Scars Are on the Inside
“Don’t you have a headache, David?”
Crouched in a ball on the cold, damp ground, I looked up at the horrified faces of my two neighbors staring down at me in terror as I heard the bloody golf club fall into the freshly cut grass of their backyard with a thud. Barely conscious, I replied, “Ummm . . . I guess so . . . ,” as I rubbed the back of my head, not realizing that my shaggy feathered hair was already matted and wet with blood pouring from the massive wound that their father’s old pitching wedge had just carved into my nine-year-old skull.
“Y-y-y-you should probably go home . . . ,” they stammered in unison.
Slightly dazed, but feeling no pain, I gathered my strength, picked myself up off the ground, and began walking the hundred and fifty yards back to my mother’s doorstep across the street. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and as it was on most weekends, our idyllic little suburban cul-de-sac was abuzz with youthful activity. Whether it was lawn mowers humming in the distance, bicycle bells chiming in time, or screaming kickball games in full swing, our neighborhood always rang with a chorus of happy children playing outdoors. The exact type of true-Americana shit that inspired network television fodder like The Brady Bunch and Happy Days. After all, North Springfield, Virginia, was a community specifically designed after World War II for that exact aesthetic. House after little brick house, just big enough for baby boomers to raise a family of four on their meager federal salaries, stretching for miles in a grid of manicured lawns, cracked sidewalks, and tall white oak trees. Only minutes from the nation’s capital, each morning the corner bus stop boasted a long line of balding men sporting beige overcoats and briefcases, reading the Washington Post as they waited to be carted off to the Pentagon or other faceless, monolithic federal buildings for another day at the desk. Life here was a reliable nine-to-five monotony. A Groundhog Day rat race with little more than a gold watch at the finish line. For those brainwashed by “white picket fence” syndrome, this was the comfortable reward of security and stability. For a hyperactive, mischievous child like me, it was the devil’s playground.
Courtesy of the author’s personal archives
Saturday mornings would usually begin with a few cartoons over a bowl of cereal before I peered out of our living room picture window onto the street to survey the day’s activity. If there was action to be found, I would immediately throw on a pair of my Toughskins (bargain jeans from Sears that came in a rainbow of nauseating colors) with the haste of a fireman called to an emergency and head out with a high-pitched “Bye, Mom! I’ll be back later!” A recluse, I was not. I much preferred the countless adventures waiting to be found outdoors, like crawling through dank drainpipes, jumping off rooftops, or throwing crab apples at unsuspecting cars from the bushes beside the road (an inadvisable prank that usually resulted in a frenzied high-speed chase, with me cutting through yards and hurdling chain-link fences with Olympic speed to escape certain low-life retribution). From early morning to the moment the streetlights came on, I would wander the pavement searching for thrills until I wore holes in my special sneakers, which had been altered with a lift on the left shoe to correct my crooked spine.
On this particular day though, I noticed that my two best friends, Johnny and Tae, were loading golf clubs into the trunk of their father’s car. Golf? I thought to myself. We never play fucking golf. That is some bourgeois rich-kid shit. We had sticks! And rocks! And creeks full of crawfish! What did we need with funny hats and plaid trousers? I quickly suited up and skipped over to their driveway to investigate, only to find that they had planned a family outing to the local golf course, sadly leaving me to my own devices for the afternoon. As I waved goodbye in disappointment, I turned and sulked back to my house, impatiently waiting for them to return by biding my time with the much-dreaded chores of raking leaves and cleaning my room (which was truly an exercise in futility, as I had little regard for organization or basic cleanliness back then. I’m a little better now. A little).
Hours passed slowly until finally I saw their blue Cadillac coming up the street. I immediately stopped what I was doing and rushed over to their house to find them both in their backyard, swinging golf clubs wildly at a practice ball on a string that was staked into the ground like a miniature tetherball setup. Cool! As I drew closer, I was in awe as they chopped away at it like deranged lumberjacks, large clumps of dirt and earth flying across the yard with each swat. Having never tried my hand at this new sport, I waited patiently for my turn, summoning every ounce of discipline my adolescent body could muster until I was fin
ally given the old, rusted club for my shot. This thing is heavy . . . , I thought as I raised my skinny arms to swing as hard as I possibly could. Whiff. Miss. Whiff. Another miss. Giant chunks of sod shot off in every direction like shrapnel, until I finally connected, and with a perfect ping the ball spun in a circle around its post, bringing me an indescribable sense of satisfaction. My heart filled with pride. “My turn!” Tae said, and he took the club from my hands, teeing up the ball for another strike. I knocked the shit out of that thing . . . , I thought. Might want to make sure the post is still firmly planted into the ground after the hurtin’ I just put on that thang . . . I leaned down to push the post into the soft dirt, and . . .
Courtesy of the author’s personal archives
WHACK.
If you’ve ever been hit in the head with great force, you surely remember the sound of impact as it echoes through your skull. Similar to the bounce of a basketball or the thump of a less-than-ripe melon (which mine was), it’s a sensation that never leaves you once you’ve experienced it. And the silence that follows, usually accompanied by some pretty little stars and a few fairies, is deafening. I had just been clobbered, full force, by a teenager with an adult-weight pitching wedge designed to produce a “high-trajectory shot” on the course. With a nine-year-old boy’s head, it produces a much different result: Helter fucking Skelter.
Little did I know, my head had been split open like an overripe pumpkin long after the trick-or-treaters have gone home. I felt nothing. Zip. Nada. So, as per Johnny and Tae’s suggestion, I began my trek home, whistling nervously and thinking, I’m in so much fucking trouble right now, without realizing the severity of what had just happened. I was wearing my favorite T-shirt that day, a white ringer with the Superman “S” on the chest, and as I was crossing the street I looked down at the red and yellow logo, but to my shock, this was no longer my beautiful Superman shirt. I was now covered in a sticky, coagulated mass of my own blood, scalp, and hair. I quickened my pace in panic as I made it to my yard, still feeling no pain, but knowing that one drop of blood on the living room carpet could bring this situation to a head (couldn’t resist that one). As I scaled the small steps to the house, I could hear my mother vacuuming inside, so rather than barge through the door in a screaming, gory mess, I stood on the stoop and gently knocked, doing anything I could to defuse the imminent hysteria. “Mom? Could you come here for a second?” I cooed in my calmest, sweetest “little boy who really fucked up this time” voice. “Hold on a minute . . . ,” she replied, oblivious to the terror that awaited outside, finishing her vacuuming in the other room. “Ummm, it’s kind of an emergency . . . ,” I whimpered.
The image of my poor mother’s face as she rounded the corner to find her youngest child standing on the doorstep covered in his own blood will forever be burned into my memory. Though I felt no pain, I felt hers.
But, truth be told, this was not the first time.
We always joked that the doctors at Fairfax County Public Hospital were on a first-name basis with me. As if I were Norm from the sitcom Cheers, they would all roar “David!” as I was wheeled into the emergency room with yet another injury that required a fresh new set of wiry black stitches. Over time, I became unfazed by the hot pinprick of a Novocain shot and the feeling of skin stretching as a doctor pulled a thin nylon thread tightly to close a wound. It became ritual. To this day, I have never completely shaved my head, but I imagine that underneath my mop of dark brown hair is something that resembles a map of the London Underground, countless lines intersecting in a tangled web of scars. Hands, knees, fingers, legs, lips, forehead . . . you name it, if it’s still connected to my body, it’s been repaired like an old rag doll. As traumatic as that may sound though, don’t be fooled. I always looked on the bright side and saw an injury as a day home from school. And I would have done anything for one of those.
Here’s an example: I once broke my ankle in a soccer game at a park near Lake Accotink, a picturesque retreat about a mile from my house. All of the sixth graders had convened on one stretch of grass to play that afternoon, and before long a furious game erupted, as most of us were lifelong soccer players for our neighborhood athletic club. (Fun fact: I was always assigned to be goalie in every sport I played, which I have to believe is some kind of premature psychological profiling, but that’s for another story.) At one point, I made contact with the ball at the precise moment another player did, twisting my foot in a gruesome direction it wasn’t designed to go in. Falling to the ground, I knew I had done real damage. So, what did I do? I walked a mile home, thinking up ways to pitch this injury to my mother in hopes that I could milk it for a day home from school, not realizing that I had actually broken my ankle. To my surprise, I woke the next day to a gigantic purple foot. “YES!!” I rejoiced! “NO SCHOOL!!”
“David!” the doctors shouted as I arrived.
The list is long. The frozen-solid chocolate Easter egg that I decided to cut into with the sharpest knife in the drawer, resulting in nearly severing my left forefinger. The hallway corner outside of my sister’s bedroom that I ran headfirst into not once but twice over the course of my childhood years, tallying more than a few stitches in my intricately embroidered forehead. The bike crashes. The car accidents. Being run over by a car when I was four. (My response? “But I didn’t get hurt, Mommy!”) My childhood was a series of far too many ER trips, each usually resulting in a new scar, a day off from school, and a damn good story.
In hindsight, I realize that my relationship with consequences was always funny. I didn’t seem to fear physical consequences. I only feared emotional consequences. Of all my brushes with grievous bodily harm, I never felt physical pain in any of those moments. None. I always walked home after getting hurt. I always put on my best game face, so as not to inconvenience my mother any more than life had inconvenienced her already, and I always tried to reassure her that whatever gaping wound I had suffered, it was just a scratch, no matter how many stitches were required. Call it a defense mechanism, call it a neurological shutoff, call it what you like, but I can only imagine it was learned from the sacrifices my mother made to raise two happy children, no matter what pain she may have endured. AFTER ALL, THE SHOW MUST GO ON.
There is a saying: “You are only as happy as your unhappiest child.” I never truly understood what that saying meant until the day I had to take my own daughter Violet to the pediatrician for a shot. Up until then, her only cries had been simple signals of hunger or fatigue, or that it was time for a new diaper. She had spent most of her first six months in my lap, smiling and giggling as I bounced her up and down, cherishing her like the miracle that she is as she stared at me with her gigantic blue eyes, reducing me to a puddle of mush with every squeak. On this day though, the doctor asked me to sit her in my lap as they prepared to give her the shot, so I turned her to face me just as I would every day in my living room chair, the two of us smiling at each other and communicating with our eyes rather than words. Although, this time was different. I knew that what came next would hurt her. I tried my best to make her giggle and smile, but as the long, sharp needle sank into her tiny arm, her expression quickly turned from one of bliss and joy to one of immense pain. Her eyes, still locked on mine, widened and filled with tears, as if to say, “Daddy, why would you let them hurt me?” I was absolutely shattered. My heart broke into a million pieces, and in that moment I felt not only Violet’s pain but my mother’s pain as well.
Upon returning home (her tears were dry by the time we left the doctor’s office, of course), I called my mother and told her that I couldn’t shake this devastating feeling, explaining that this was the first time I had ever experienced my child’s crying from real pain and how it had absolutely crushed my soul. Her response was as wise as I have now come to expect:
“God forbid she ever shows up at your doorstep covered in her own blood, then you’ll really understand . . .”
Good thing my mother wasn’t in attendance the night of June 12, 2015, at Got
henburg, Sweden’s Ullevi stadium.
It was a beautiful Scandinavian summer evening. Clear skies, warm breeze, and fifty thousand Foo Fighters fans anxiously awaiting our tried-and-true, two-and-a-half-hour, twenty-five-song set list. At this point, our little band had graduated from arena to stadium level, becoming a tight, well-oiled machine that banged out song after song with little respite, and I had become more than comfortable with entertaining an audience of this magnitude, living out my innermost Freddie Mercury fantasies on a nightly basis. Hearing a time-delayed full-throated sing-along ricocheting from the farthest rafters of a football stadium is an out-of-body sensation, one that becomes oddly addictive over time, echoing in a chorus of sublime connectivity. The open air, hitting you in gusts that give your hair a perfect Beyoncé blowout while you inhale the aroma of sweat and beer that sometimes rises from the crowd in a foglike condensation. The roar of fireworks above your head as you take your final bow and sprint to the room-temperature pepperoni pizza waiting in your dressing room. Believe me, it is all that it’s cracked up to be and more. I never fully embraced stadium rock until I experienced it from the lip of the stage, and to this day I have never taken a single moment of it for granted. It is an otherworldly experience, one that can be described in just two words: fucking awesome.