Foo Fighters played The National in September 2014 thanks to a crowdsourced effort spearheaded by fans.
The Foo Fighters’ famous Sept. 17, 2014, concert at The National almost didn’t happen in Richmond. This one-of-a-kind crowdsourced show, which was an unlikely triumph for the city, was almost staged Woodstock-style in Hanover County.
“Logistically, having it at my friend Steve’s farm in Rockville just wasn’t feasible,” remembers Andrew Goldin, then an employee of The Martin Agency who got the “fully baked” idea one day that the emerging crowdsourcing trend could help ordinary music fans bring top-tier performers to their towns.
Goldin immediately thought of his favorite band, which hadn’t played in the area in 15 years. “I absolutely love the Foo Fighters,” says Goldin, now a freelance advertising writer living in Colorado. “It was a crazy idea, but sometimes you get lucky.”
Goldin shared the notion of crowdfunding a Foo Fighters show with fellow Martin employees Brig White and John McAdorey, and they enlisted commercial filmmaker Lucas Krost, co-owner of the company The Branching. Then they did what comes naturally to young advertising geniuses: They created a campaign.
“We were all big fans of the band, and particularly Dave Grohl, the leader,” says White, who now directs commercials in Los Angeles. “We knew that they would sometimes appear at small clubs under aliases and stuff like that, and so they might possibly be open to doing something like this.”
McAdorey, a Tuckahoe resident who works today as an executive producer at the McCann agency, says that conditions were ideal. “In 2014, you started to realize that with social media’s reach, you could actually communicate with a performer, or at least let them see what you’re doing. And more importantly, you can unite a group of fans quickly and easily if you get the right message out there. And that’s exactly what we did.”
First, the foursome had to convince fans to purchase 1,400 tickets at $50 each to a theoretical concert at an undisclosed venue at an unnamed time, and then they had to persuade the band to play the show. “There were some people who were skeptical and dubious, absolutely,” Goldin says, “but there were people who bought into the idea from the beginning, or at least wanted to see where it would go.”
One important step, McAdorey recalls, was figuring out how to sell tickets at no risk to anyone. The guys eventually used the now-defunct Crowdtilt site, ensuring that the money would be transferred to the group and venue if a show happened and refunded back to donors if it didn’t.
A homespun promotional YouTube video, shot in White’s backyard, sold people on the campaign — and caught the attention of the band. Mondial, the Richmond-based post-production company, donated editing services for the clip. “We just came up with it on the spot,” Krost recalls. “It was a real pencil sketch of a script, a really unpolished pitch, but I think that reflected the sincerity of what we were doing.”
The online campaign was followed by some old-fashioned street promotion. “We made some posters and hung them up all over the city, posted a lot on Reddit, and at a certain point it just took on a life of its own,” Goldin says.
Early on, the Foo Fighters organization was plugged into what was happening in Richmond. “Dave said it at the show,” McAdorey recalls. “He knew that anybody who was going to buy a ticket to this was a diehard fan. And he saw the video within a week and said, ‘We’re doing this.’ ”
It took from March to June 2014 to sell $70,000 worth of tickets. Brown’s Volkswagen and Sugar Shack Donuts were early supporters, each giving $5,000 as part of a ticket giveaway, but nearly all of the sales came one or two at a time, from ordinary fans.
“When the tickets sold out, and The National got involved, everything got crazy,” Goldin recalls. “They came and they played, and it was so much fun. We watched them load up their gear and the soundcheck. The energy of the fans seeing them in a tiny venue — Dave said that he’d never heard a crowd like that, as relatively small as it was. It was amazing.”
(From left) Concert organizers Lucas Krost, Brig White, Andrew Goldin and John McAdorey onstage at The National
Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones proclaimed Sept. 17 as Foo Fighters Day RVA and presented a certificate to the band on the day of the gig.
“I’ve been a musician for a long time, and I’ve never played a show like this one,” Grohl told the crowd, promising “a special program” of deep cuts and big hits stretching back to the band’s 1994 self-titled debut album. From the stage, the bandleader, who spent his formative years in Springfield, dedicated a song to his mom, Virginia Jean, who was in attendance, and reminisced about his early bands opening for Richmond legends Death Piggy and GWAR.
Grohl was effusive about the idea of the crowdfunded show and said it might revolutionize future tours. In an interview with South African radio station 5FM he said, “I’m telling you, it could become the way that bands decide where they want to play. It’s a fun thing; it sort of changes the game.”
Despite Grohl’s prognostication, and positive local and national press, the crowdfunding idea fizzled. “There were some copycats at first,” White says, “but I don’t know why it never caught on. Maybe because you have to be so organized. It’s a lot of work.”
Did the fact that these guys worked in advertising have anything to do with their success? “Possibly,” Krost says. “If you have Andrew, Brig and John in a room strategizing, that’s a pretty powerful force.”
The trio was invited to South by Southwest, and White and McAdorey did a TEDxRVA talk about the experience in 2015. “People talked about how it would change the game,” McAdorey says. “I really thought it would move the needle more.”
The Foo Fighters returned to Richmond in 2017 to play the much larger Richmond Coliseum. “Dave even brought up the National show and the campaign up at the concert that night,” Goldin recalls. “He didn’t forget.”
The Foo Fighters will be inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Oct. 30 in Cleveland, Ohio at 8 p.m. Tickets are $46-$1,243. Rockhall.com
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