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Foo Fighters on if they’ll ever play Download
Music•February 24, 2026 at 10:26 AMNational

Foo Fighters on if they’ll ever play Download

By Liberty Dunworth•NME Music News

Dave Grohl and co. have never played the Donington festival, but could that change with album 12 on the way? The post Foo Fighters on if they’ll ever play Download appeared first on NME.

Foo Fighters have opened up about if they will ever play Download Festival, having never been there before.

Despite being known for their huge rock sound and the immense energy at their live shows, the American band have never played at the iconic UK festival in all of their years being together.

Now, with their 12th studio album on the way, frontman Dave Grohl and co. have been asked if they are open to the idea of playing at the Donington festival.

They were asked by Kerrang! Radio’s Sophie K in a new interview, who shared that fans have always been convinced that they would be a great fit for the line-ups at Download, and highlighted that many are surprised to hear that they’d never been there before.

When mentioning that the sound of the new album – which Grohl has described as full of “noisy, loud bangers” – would work great with the atmosphere at Download, the frontman responded: “It’s like a Download kind of album? Maybe we should do it! Maybe it’s time.”

He then went on to ask his bandmates if any of them had ever been to the festival, and when they all said they hadn’t, Grohl suggested that maybe an appearance was “overdue”.

The band announced their 12th full-length effort, ‘Your Favorite Toy’ on Thursday (February 19), and shared its massive title track. In a four-star review, NME described the song as a “futureproof rock beast” that is “snarlingly unapologetic”.

The album is due for release on April 24, following on from 2023’s ‘But Here We Are’. It’ll also contain last year’s ‘Asking For A Friend’.

Since they announced news of the album – after a while of hinting at new music – Grohl has admitted that he found it “really complicated” to continue with the band after the unexpected death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022, and also shared that he thinks every one of their albums could have been their “last”.

The band will head out on the road in the UK and Europe this year for a run of huge stadium shows, and are set to play some North American dates over the summer and autumn. They’ve announced an Australia and New Zealand leg, too, for 2026 and 2027. Find any remaining tickets here.

Since announcing the new record, the band have played their new single ‘Your Favorite Toy’ for the first time on The Graham Norton Show, and announced a series of surprise shows taking place across London, Dublin and Manchester this week.

They kicked off the shows in Dublin last night (Monday February 23) with a hit packed set, and also used the intimate gig to debut some currently unreleased material from the record.

The post Foo Fighters on if they’ll ever play Download appeared first on NME.

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