Last year sometime in between those endless days of summer in between July and August a video appeared on my Facebook feed that showed a thousand Italians musicians playing a Foo Fighters song entitled “Learn to Fly”.

The intention of the video was to make an appeal to Foo Fighters frontman, Dave Grohl, to bring his band to Europe to play in the city of Cesena.

Dave and the rest of the Foo Fighters followed through on their willingness to bring their band to Italy and played a 27-song set on November 4, 2015.

This is an excerpt of what Dave said during his performance on that day.

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“Tonight, I know, that you know, we’re here for a very special reason. F**kin, thank you. Let me tell you, this has never happened before. This is like the revolution. Who’s in the Rockin’1000? Crazy motherf**kers.
First of all, we have to say thank you to all the musicians who are here tonight. What you guys did, the whole world saw what you did. Million and millions of people. It’s a beautiful thing, Congratulations everybody. I was on vacation and my phone was like ‘bling, bling, bling’ from all my friends asking ‘have you seen this on Youtube?’ And I’m like f**k YouTube.
But then, after 100 texts, I looked at one of them and I was like, what the f**k. Then, I f**king cried, because it was crazy. Because, when we make music we make it in our basement, or our studio. And we write songs, and then we make the record and we don’t think about the rest of the world.

Last September I went to see the Foo Fighters play just outside of Pittsburgh at the First Niagara Pavilion in Burgettstown. I went with Richard, who is one of my oldest friends and he brought along his friend Bridget who I gradually became friends with over the course of the past year.

Something that I learned through that gradual experience with Bridget was that people aren’t closed systems or like computer hard drives that have finite amount of hard drive space. New people that you could across sometimes actually want to build a friendship together with you and because of those sorts of friendships you can often become a better person or even realize the value of how someone can impact your life on so many levels.

As I came across some Foo Fighter t-shirts in Florence I thought back to the first album of theirs that I purchased, “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” when I was a five-foot nothing sophomore in high school. I always thought the music video for “Learn to Fly” was funny, but the songs that I gravitated towards the most on that album were “Generator” and “Remember Aurora”, which were B-sides after the popular singles.

I think Dave Grohl appreciates his fans so much, because he knows what it’s like to be a fan himself. Just a little over four months ago, one of Dave’s hero’s, Lemmy from the British metal band, Motörhead, passed away. Dave spoke eloquently at his funeral service and told a story during Lemmy’s eulogy how Dave first approached Lemmy by himself in the corner on a video game and said, “Excuse me Lemmy, I don’t want to bother you, but you’ve influenced me so much, you’re my musical hero. I play in the Foo Fighters and I was in Nirvana.”

“He looked up to me from the video game, and the first thing he ever said to me; he said, ‘I’m sorry about your friend Kurt,’” Grohl continued. “In that moment, [he went from being] the whiskey-drinking, badass mother—in’ rock star to being this gun-slinging, whiskey-drinking, badass motherf—in’ rock star with a heart. And I walked away thinking I may never see him again, but that’s enough for the rest of my life.

“But then we became friends,” Grohl said. “It’s one thing when you have a hero, but it’s another thing when your hero becomes your friend.”

Across from the restaurant by our hotels, the Giannino in S Lorenzo, there was this kick-ass rock and roll shop called Red Light that looked like Hot Topic on steroids.

Kaitlyn, Jordan, and I had to explore it during one of our first days in Florence. We walked down the stairs into this funky place that felt like some sort of new hell—some sort of hell where rock and roll exists, with vinyl records plastered all over the walls and ceiling. As we followed the records towards the back room of the shop, we saw some words painted on the wall that said, “Welcome To Hell”.

Throughout this trip I’ve been able to talk music with a lot of people, which is one of my favorite things to do. I talked with Kaitlyn how we were at the same Relient K show years ago at UPG when they played a show with New Found Glory. I talked with Mindy how we both love listening to Mayday Parade and have seen them a few times when they came to Pittsburgh. I talked with Jordan how we were also both at the same All Time Low show about a year ago when they were on tour with State Champs.

After Kaitlyn, Jordan, and I were done in the shop just before I left I looked at the back of the counter and said to myself—“Look! There’s Lemy—as if Lemy’s presence was somehow haunting this rock shop in Florence. There was an old newspaper clipping of Lemy and Ozzy Osbourne taped up on the wall that I went back later to take a snapshot of.

When I was in Venice yesterday I saw some graffiti spray painted on a wall that said, “No Flags, No Borders.” I’m not in support of some sort of loss of nationalism, global New-World-Order like that graffiti was conveying, but I think the art of music really does transcend borders.

Later that night after Kaitlyn, Jordan, and I went into that rock shop, we did end up having our nice fancy three course dinner. The potatoes were the most delicious potatoes I’ve ever eaten and the tiramasu was the most decadent desert I’ve ever eaten. I loved the cool layer in between the top coffee coating. After our dinner was over Amanda, Mindy, and Casey Arn all sang the popular song from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, “Part of Your World”.

I loved looking at the Italians as they were eating dinner and reacting to the voices that were technically interrupting their dinner.

Some people were smiling, some were surprised, and others may have even been perturbed perhaps, but I appreciated that all of the people in the other room applauded after their Little Mermaid performance concluded. Maybe Italians just appreciate good music when they hear it and applauded our little trio just like they were attracted to listen to the Foo Fighters.

As I finished sipping on my last glass of wine I went searching for an extended metaphor in all of this. I thought of Ariel singing to her yellow-and-blue fish pal, Flounder. I thought of how Ariel forfeited her voice to that purple villainous octopus, Ursula to try and became a human so she could fall in love with her beloved, Eric. I think The Little Mermaid may be another one of those polarizing stories like the woman waiting at the window for her lover to return to her from the battlefront of war. Why should Ariel give up the greatest gift that was given to her—for love? Why does love seem like it has to be some sort of sacrifice?

I don’t think it has to be. Love shouldn’t be a sacrifice. We shouldn’t give up the best parts of ourselves just to try and bend and fit the mold of with someone else’s projections of us.

Earlier today, Mary asked me, “Do you miss being an undergraduate student?”

I think I’m pretty much the same person underneath I’ve always been, but better. Our hair styles and faces morph and change over the years, but it’s our voices that remain the same.

I think it’s through failure and rising up from adversity that I’ve been able to forge my way into the future and it’s through the support of genuine, true friends, that you can talk to and find yourself and I think I’ve made some new and rekindled some old friendships on this trip just like I did with Richard and Bridget at the Foo Fighters show last year.

Ciao for now!