Foo Fighters finally squeezed all six members into NPR’s legendary Tiny Desk space for their first-ever appearance on the series, delivering a five-song set that mixed brand-new material with absolute classics *†. The band took the challenge seriously—spending weeks rehearsing and even recreating the Tiny Desk’s cramped dimensions in their own practice studio, though their carefully planned configuration went out the window once they actually arrived at the NPR office ‡. Dave Grohl kicked things off with “Spit Shine” from the new album *Your Favorite Toy*, followed by the crowd-pleasing “Learn to Fly” and “Child Actor” (which they’d recently performed on Saturday Night Live UK, where Grohl joked about accidentally inhaling his own hair) *†‡.
The set closed with two monster tracks from 1997’s *The Colour and the Shape*—”My Hero” had the crowd singing along, and “Everlong” brought it home *†. Grohl revealed he’d been inspired to do Tiny Desk after watching Trouble Funk somehow fit 12 members into the same space, citing that performance and Juvenile as his personal favorites from the series *†‡. The band’s been on a promotional tear for *Your Favorite Toy*, hitting Colbert, playing a club show in New York, and headlining Welcome to Rockville in Florida *.
The Tiny Desk appearance comes as Foo Fighters gear up for a massive run of dates—they’ll headline BottleRock Napa Valley on May 23 alongside LCD Soundsystem and Zedd, then hit Europe and the UK before launching a nearly two-month North American stadium tour in August with Queens of the Stone Age *‡. That tour kicks off August 4 in Toronto at Rogers Stadium and runs through September 26 in Las Vegas, with Queens of the Stone Age supporting on all dates except the September 12 Fargo show ‡.