“I’ve waited my whole life for this!” whispered 10-year-old Collier as he stepped onto the Foo Fighters stage in Kansas City. Hands trembling, eyes sparkling, the young fan faced Dave Grohl, who grinned that signature rock-and-roll grin and asked,
“Do you play guitar, little man?”
Collier nodded, his voice barely steady: “Yes… but I know a lot of Metallica songs.”
The crowd of 20,000 erupted — laughing, cheering, and screaming his name. Grohl laughed, stunned, and handed him a Gibson guitar almost bigger than Collier himself. “Alright, kid, prove it!”
What happened next stunned everyone.
Together with late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, Collier played the opening riffs of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, while Grohl belted out a near-perfect James Hetfield impression and Hawkins pounded the drums. The crowd went wild.
Encouraged by Grohl, Collier also attempted the intros to “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” and “Wherever I May Roam”, proving that age is no barrier to rocking a stadium. The performance, from 2018, carries extra poignancy for fans, as it happened just a few years before Hawkins tragically passed away.
The video quickly went viral, racking up 11 million views, and Foo Fighters fans know this isn’t a one-off — the band has a history of inviting young fans on stage. Another iconic moment features 11-year-old drummer Nandi Bushell playing “Everlong,” which has over 12 million views.
Dave Grohl, famously Nirvana’s drummer and Foo Fighters’ frontman, has long expressed his love for Metallica, even joking about forming his “fantasy band” with them. “I love being a drummer,” he once said, “’cos to me I’m a drummer pretending to be a singer-songwriter.”
“Enter Sandman” was the perfect choice for this epic jam. The track remains Metallica’s biggest hit, streaming over 1.1 billion times on Spotify, and is the lead single from their 1991 self-titled album, which went 16x Platinum in the US.