Dave Grohl makes unforced error regarding Taylor Swift

In the Era of Taylor Swift’s complete and utter cultural dominance, an established male musician undermining her abilities is akin to adding fuel to the flames. To do so not only riles the Swifties but it plays directly into Swift’s preferred position, wherein despite being the most successful singer in the world she’s still somehow also an underdog, underestimated by her peers and undermined by a patriarchal establishment. Time and again she’s used such dismissive remarks to shore up support and spark inspiration for girl-power anthems (“The Man”), and generally remain on top. In other words—Dave Grohl should’ve known better!

Grohl, who in the past has been a friend and self-proclaimed fan of Swift’s, couldn’t help himself when performing at London Stadium on Saturday, not far from where Taylor Swift was putting on her own show at Wembley Stadium. Early in the Foo Fighters set, Grohl joked that the band was on their “Errors Tour,” a play on Swift’s famous “Eras Tour.” Later, he said, “I tell you, man, you don’t want to suffer the wrath of Taylor Swift. So we like to call our tour the Errors Tour. We’ve had more than a few eras, and more than a few f***ing errors as well. Just a couple.” He paused before adding, “That’s because we actually play live. What?! Just saying. You guys like raw, live rock ‘n’ roll music, right? You came to the right fucking place.”

It’s surprising for Grohl to be throwing such obvious shade Swift’s way, first because he’s clearly aware of the consequences of “the wrath of Taylor Swift,” and second because the pair have always been friendly in the past. Grohl has a talk show bit about how Swift “saved” him during a party at Paul McCartney’s house: he was asked to play a song but was too out of it (presumably drunk), so Swift stepped in and played the Foo Fighters’ “Best Of You” on McCartney’s piano. (McCartney attended Swift’s Eras Tour at Wembley on Sunday. The Foo Fighters’ Pat Smear also attended one of her London shows.) Fans speculated the relationship between Swift and Grohl may have soured after the rocker’s daughter, Violet, posted criticism of Swift’s private jet usage, which caused Swifties to attack Violet online until she deactivated her Twitter/X account. But there hasn’t been any confirmation as to why Grohl would want to beef with the biggest star in the world right now.

For her part, Swift seemed to address Grohl’s shady comment on stage at her Wembley show on Sunday. Thanking the crowd at the third of eight sold-out concerts, she said (via Deadline), “Every one of my band members, every single one of our crew, my band who’s gonna be playing live for you for 3.5 hours tonight, they deserve this so much. And so does every one of my fellow performers. And you just gave that to us so generously, we will never forget it.”