American rock band Foo Fighters performed the ultimate meme in their concert at the Summer Sonic Festival in Tokyo on Aug. 19 by bringing out Rick Astley — the original singer of the trolling song "Never Gonna Give You Up."
Astley, in a surprising turn of events, took to the stage to churn out a grunge version of the song with the Foo Fighters, with Astley singing of course.
According to Rolling Stone, Dave Grohl, the band's lead guitarist and front man, only met Astley a couple of minutes before they performed the song. The instruments started by playing a similar tune to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana, where Grohl used to play drums.
The trend of using the 1987 song by Astley started in 2007, wherein a person from the internet would create click-baits to lure people in — only for them to find the music video of the song being played. This trend was dubbed as "rickrolling."
It was fortuitous for the band and Astley to be at the same venue; after all, they were both set to perform at the same event. The two parties must have met with each other back stage and discussed how to make the show a little bit more interesting. And what better way to do that than by performing the most popular prank song that once dominated the internet.
In a YouTube video shot by a concertgoer, it can be seen that Astley and the band are having the time of their lives, nailing the performance. It would appear that Astley has kept his voice well-maintained through the years, preserving his singing style that artists used in pop songs and new wave during the '80s.
After the gig, Astley posted a snippet of the performance on Instagram. In the caption, he thanked the people who came to watch the show and even said that he had "one of the best nights of my life."
