Overview
- Foo Fighters, which played BottleRock Napa Valley on Saturday (May 23), slipped The Vaselines’ “Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam” into the middle of their set and marked the song’s first-ever live performance by the band.
- Frontman Dave Grohl sang the cover and keyboardist Rami Jaffee played accordion while Grohl adopted a vocal style that several reports likened to Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged delivery.
- The BottleRock show included onstage dedications as part of the set, with “Aurora” dedicated to late drummer Taylor Hawkins, a slowed version of “Big Me” dedicated to Grohl’s wife Jordyn Blum, and “These Days” dedicated to chef José Andrés.
- The song was written and released by Scottish indie band The Vaselines in the late 1980s and was popularized by Nirvana, which retitled it for its MTV Unplugged In New York recording on November 18, 1993; Grohl played drums on that Nirvana version.
- The debut was captured in fan video and reported across outlets, and it adds a nostalgic, Nirvana-linked moment to the Foo Fighters’ current touring cycle as they promote their new album and continue the Take Cover Tour.