UPDATE, 3:35 PM: In a tweet, the Black Cat’s management says if you’re not in line right now, you’ll spend Friday night hoping Grohl comes down to the Red Room after the Foo Fighters’ set.
The Foo Fighters, the Dave Grohl-led rock band that frequently sells out large arenas and headlines at major music festivals, will play the 700-capacity Black Cat on Friday, the band announced Tuesday afternoon.
The surprise show is pegged to the second episode of the Foo Fighters’ HBO miniseriesSonic Highways, Grohl’s eight-installment documentary about the making of the band’s new album of the same name. Each track on the LP, due out November 10, was recorded in a different city, with the second song, “The Feast and the Famine,” recorded at Arlington’s Inner Ear Studios. The Black Cat set will also include a screening of the Washington episode, which features appearances by Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye, Trouble Funk’s Big Tony, and other DC scene luminaries. President Barack Obama and Grohl’s fellow Northern Virginia expat Pharrell Williams make appearances, too.
The Foo Fighters appear to be playing small-club shows in every city where they filmed theSonic Highways series, but playing the Black Cat this Friday is obviously a bit more special for Grohl. Besides growing up in Springfield and getting his start in the hardcore band Scream, Grohl is also a minority owner in the 14th Street, Northwest, landmark.
Friday’s show goes on sale at the Black Cat Tuesday at 6 PM. Tickets are $20, plus a $3 service fee, and are only available in person and, more importantly, in cash. Yes, it’s going to sell out; for everyone who doesn’t get in, the DC episode of Sonic Highways airs at 11 PM on HBO (you could also try hanging around Georgetown’s Ri Ra, which the band has visited before).
The full cut of “The Feast and the Famine” won’t be heard until the end of the episode (or Friday’s set, if you’re lucky enough), but you can hear snippets of it in the preview below.
Find Benjamin Freed on Twitter at @brfreed.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
