Dave Grohl loves a long con. And on Saturday night at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco he squared the circle on a joke he’s been telling for much of he Foo Fighters‘ current tour. For months at Foos shows, Grohl has been asking if anyone in the audience knows the lyrics to Michael Bublé‘s bouncy pop ditty “Haven’t Met You Yet” from the crooner’s 2009 Crazy Love album.
Aside from loving an inescapable pop hook, the gag is also a nod to the eclectic resume of drummer Josh Freese, a well-traveled studio and live player who, as luck would have it, did a stint playing for Bublé. And if it even has to be said, yes, Freese played the drums on the studio version of “Haven’t Met You Yet.”
Praising Freese’s lengthy resumé, Grohl had keyboardist Rami Jaffee cue up the springy piano intro to the song. “The last couple shows — I always look out [into the crowd] — someone’s like ‘I know the Bublé song,’ ‘I’ll come up and sing,’ ‘I know the f— Bublé song,’” Grohl said to the audience at the festival in a video of the moment.
“And every time someone f— says they know the song, they don’t know the f— song. Do you know the f— song? Who knows the f— song?,” the excitable Foos leader asked the crowd. Then, spotting a superfan in the crowd with an “I love Bublé” sign, Grohl called him up to the stage. “This motherf–er better know the song! Do you know the song? Because people say they know it but they don’t!”
Spoiler alert: it was the Bubes himself, who smoothly dropped right into the first verse as he took the stage in all-black for the perfectly executed gag with his old pal Freese backing him up. After crooning through the chorus (with some help from the crowd) Grohl admitted, “Okay, this guy’s pretty good. This guy’s pretty good,” before jumping in and asking if he could sing the hook.
Second spoiler alert: Grohl did not sing the word “met” in the chorus, substituting a more graphic lyric.
“Oh my God, it’s Michael Bublé!” Grohl said in shock surprise, explaining that every time they did it on tour people would claim to know the lyrics, but never actually did. “This bad-ass motherf—er, and I’m not even kidding, flew in today from Argentina to f–ing sing that song to you guys,” Grohl said. “‘Cause there’s no such thing as taking a joke too far.”
In a backstage bit posted by Bublé, the ultra-smooth singer announces that he’s finally been asked to join the Foos, to which Dave Grohl says, “f–k you Bublé!”
Watch the videos below.
This story originally appeared on Billboard
