NewsFeed’s been excited over a favorite band’s last-minute, impromptu gig before. But the Foo Fighters just set the bar a bit higher.
The rock band serenaded what could be construed as another (in)famous performance group—members of the Westboro Baptist Church—in Kansas City this past Friday before a concert at the city’s Sprint Center. Performing a spirited version of “Keep It Clean (Hot Buns)” in the same costumes worn for the song’s homoerotic music video, they played to an unflinchingly bitter group of protesters from the Topeka-based hate group who had vowed to oppose the band’s appearance several weeks earlier.
“The entertainment industry is a microcosm of the people of this doomed nation: hard-hearted, Hell-bound, and hedonistic to the max,” wrote the church, in an August 30 news release concerning the gig. “Every person with a platform should be using it to encourage obedience to God.”
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Instead they used their literal platform, a flatbed truck equipped for a country quintet, to extol the values of America before the sign-bearing protesters. In between lyrics describing the band’s hankerin’ for “hot man muffins,” Grohl made his point clear in a spoken-word monologue.
“I don’t care if you’re black or white or purple or green, whether you’re Pennsylvanian or Transylvanian, Lady Gaga or Lady Antebellum,” Grohl said, continuing, “Men loving women and women loving men and men loving men and women loving women—you all know we like to watch that.”
After which Grohl added a “God Bless America,” as the truck-based stage pulled away from the crowd like some kind of backwoods U2 publicity stunt.
There may be a glimmer of hope though, that the church understood the dig at its blind brand of hatred. Though she seemed to be dressed up as a homophobic billboard, a lone female protester exclaimed, “I love that song!”
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