Foo Fighters Pull Off Biggest Rickroll Ever

In scenes that would have almost certainly confounded Kurt Cobain, the Foo Fighters pulled off the most spectacular Rickroll of all time at a music festival in Tokyo on Sunday. After the band performed a few of their own songs, lead singer Dave Grohl told the audience at the Summer Sonic Festival: "We just learned this today. Ladies and gentleman, would you please welcome our new best friend, Rick Astley," Variety reports. Grohl told the crowd that they had just met Astley, who was also on the festival bill, for the first time a few minutes earlier.

The British singer, who last year released a chart-topping new album, then joined the band on stage and the band played the intro to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." But at the last moment, Astley began singing his own "Never Gonna Give You Up" instead of the grunge classic—and the crowd seemed to love it. The mash-up worked "surprisingly well" after a slow start, according to Sam Barsanti at the AV Club, who suggests Astley should consider joining the band on a more permanent basis. Rolling Stone notes that this wasn't the Foo Fighters' first Rickroll: In 2015, they blasted the Astley hit from a flatbed truck at Westboro Baptist Church protesters in Kansas City. (More Rickroll stories.)