Chris Shiflett seized the opportunity to emulate his electric guitar hero, Eddie Van Halen, earlier this week as Foo Fighters began their UK tour in Manchester.
Their 24-song setlist included all the Foos hits you’d have expected, but a brief nod to Eruption probably wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card.
As it so happened, Shiflett blended some of Eruption's classic fretboard runs into a crowd-pleasing introductory guitar solo – minus the two-handed tapping, as he opted to pick it instead.
As he rung out the excerpt's last few notes, delivered on a Seymour Duncan-loaded Gibson Les Paul gifted to him by their frontman, Dave Grohl took to the mic to say: “I’m not sure how that applies to what we do, but he’s a fucking great guitar player!”
Speaking to Guitar World a few years back, Shiflett spoke about how “Foo Fighters isn’t a band that has a lot of guitar solo-type stuff – on my own material, I do a lot more of that.”
At the time, he added he wishes he could “play like Eddie Van Halen, but I think that’s an unattainable goal,” which probably explains the slight change of tact for tackling Eddie's showpiece.
Another surprise addition to the set was a never-heard-before song, Unconditional. A representative of the band told the website Consequence of Sound that the song was “partially written and demo’d during home studio sessions years ago – but ultimately left unfinished.
“The song came up in conversation during rehearsals for the UK tour, and all it took was one run-through. The decision was made instantly to share it with everyone in the same way – live.”
Shiflett, meanwhile, has recently been road-testing a prototype of a new affordable version of his signature Telecaster, which he has teased “sounds really good.”
The Foo Fighters will play a second Manchester show on June 15, with dates in Glasgow, London, Cardiff, and Birmingham ahead of them.
