The show raised $250,000 for Homme’s Sweet Stuff Foundation which helps musicians and others in the recording industry who’ve hit hard times.
Josh Homme repeatedly promised the audience that the benefit concert he hosted at the Belasco in Los Angeles on Wednesday would be “a night of unexpected things.”
And, of course, the frontman and co-founder of Queens of the Stone Age would know that given all the guests were all his friends, including musicians Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, Beck, and Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as comedians Sarah Silverman and Bill Burr.
But even the guy who knew the run of the show wasn’t prepared for the surprise Grohl had planned: an original song he’d written for and about Homme, which left Homme in tears at its finish.
“My first idea that I had, I was like, you know what, this (stuff) is funny,” Grohl said at the benefit for Sweet Stuff, the foundation Homme and his family started a decade ago to help musicians and recording industry people who’d fallen on hard times. “I’m gonna come out and I’m going do a (bleepin’) Doja Cat song.
“And I spent (bleepin’) days trying to learn that, ‘Yeah, (bleep), I said what I said,’” Grohl continued, singing a snippet of “Paint The Town Red” as the audience roared. “There are so many lyrics to that song!”
Grohl said he woke up in the middle of the night, panicked about his choice. “I didn’t want to roll out ‘Everlong’ for the 1000th time,” he said, adding that things got so bad he found himself at 3 a.m. looking at a Spotify playlist titled Great Acoustic Covers.
Finally, he decided to do something “that’s maybe considered really, really uncool – I wrote a song that’s really earnest about my friend, Josh,” Grohl said. “We’re all here for this one big reason, but I don’t know that we’d all be here if it weren’t for that guy.
“So I thought I’m going to write a song about him and embarrass him in front of all his friends by actually singing about how much I (bleepin’) love you, man,” Grohl finished to more cheers from the audience as Homme watched from the side of the stage.
