Dave Grohl stands in for Cage The Elephant drummer

By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 14 October 2011

Imagine the scenario. You’re a band, you’ve been invited to support one of the biggest rock bands in the world on their US tour, and then suddenly your drummer’s appendix bursts. Nightmare. Unless of course, the band you’re supporting happens to be fronted by Dave Grohl, who is still on some kind of mission to play drums with every band ever.

The support band in question are Cage The Elephant, who are currently supporting Foo Fighters on their US tour and whose drummer was admitted to hospital in the early hours of Tuesday morning with a burst appendix. This left the band a man down for a gig that night in Salt Lake City.

“He [drummer Jared Champion] had an ulcer for a couple days”, explained Cage The Elephant guitarist Lincoln Parrish to Spin. “Then at 1am it was just unbearable, so he went to the emergency room. He was rushed straight into surgery. Dave somehow heard what had happened and called our tour manager. He said: ‘Hey, so do you think the guys would go for it?’ Our manager was like ‘Um… yeah!”

Parrish continued: “I had to pinch myself. I turned around and Dave Grohl is playing the drums. It’s an amazing, once in a lifetime experience. Nobody can replace Jared. But it’s Dave fucking Grohl. If you’re going to be replaced by anybody, it might as well be the best”.

Actually, so far it’s been a twice in a lifetime experience, because Grohl also performed with the band in LA last night, and will continue to do so until Champion is well enough to return to the tour. The band hopes he’ll be back in time to play San Diego on Monday. Or maybe they don’t.