Last night (Sept. 3), Foo Fighters resumed their 2023 tour with a set at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Colorado. Near the end of the 18-song set, the Foos brought up Billy Idol to cover the Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant,” from the British punks’ landmark 1977 debut album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.
This isn’t the first time that the Foos and Idol have joined forces. In 2018, Idol hopped on stage with the band at the Welcome to Rockville festival to cover John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth.” Idol’s pre-fame punk band Generation X was a contemporary of the Sex Pistols, but he’d apparently never performed any of their material live as a solo artist prior to last night. However, he did join forces with former Generation X bandmate Tony James and the Pistols’ Steve Jones and Paul Cook for a one-off 2018 gig at the Roxy in Los Angeles under the name Generation Sex.
The Foos are also no strangers to the Pistols’ material, having previously covered “God Save the Queen” at the 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards as well as “Bodies” and “Silly Thing” with Jones during a private charity gig at their Studio 606 in 2016. Last night’s Idol collaboration was all the more notable considering the Foos’ previous guest vocalist was none other than crooner Michael Bublé on Aug. 12 at San Francisco’s Outside Lands festival.
Foo Fighters head to Brazil for two shows this week before returning to the U.S. for festival performances at Riot Fest, Sea.Hear.Now., and Louder Than Life. As for Idol, he has a handful of headlining shows on tap this month, to be followed by five dates at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas in late October.
