Foo Fighters Bring Stadium Rock to NPR’s Tiny Desk, Tapping Trouble Funk for the Blueprint

The Foo Fighters turned NPR’s Tiny Desk into a cramped rock-show test, packing six members into the small space for a five-song set released May 13, 2026. Dave Grohl said the idea was shaped by watching D.C. go-go band Trouble Funk squeeze 12 members into the room during their 2018 appearance.

The performance arrived as the band was already playing smaller rooms in New York and New Jersey ahead of their new album, Your Favorite Toy. Even so, Tiny Desk was a different kind of squeeze for a band built for stadiums. Grohl opened by calling it “an honor to be here,” then led the group through “Spit Shine” with the kind of force that usually reads best to a crowd of thousands.

According to NPR, the group planned the appearance carefully before arriving in Washington, D.C., including taping out the dimensions of the desk in a practice space to figure out the close quarters. That preparation paid off across a set that moved between the new material and older staples without much room to spare.

Grohl then switched to acoustic guitar for a mostly unplugged version of “Learn to Fly” before moving into “Child Actor,” another track from the new album. He said recording a record brings its own problems, especially when it comes time to perform it. “And then when you come out to perform you realize that you haven’t had a haircut in a year and it becomes really hard to see the fretboard,” he joked, adding that during a recent scream-heavy run-through of the song, he inhaled some hair and sounded like he was coughing up a furball.

From there, Grohl pushed the Tiny Desk crowd to join in on “My Hero” and “Everlong,” the pair of 1997 and 1999-era staples that closed the set for the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.

The band now heads to Bottlerock Napa Valley in Napa, Calif. on May 23. A European tour follows on June 10 in Oslo, before the 2026 North American stadium run begins August 4 at Rogers Stadium in Toronto.