The reason why Foo Fighters stopped playing ‘Big Me’ live

Following the death of his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain in 1994, Dave Grohl courageously turned a leaf to an exciting new chapter as the frontman of Foo Fighters. Until this point, Gohl was predominantly a drummer, but as the leader of Foo Fighters, he began to hone his skills as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter.

Despite his monumental success with Nirvana, Grohl had to start from scratch to build his rock ‘n’ roll reputation. Amid legal disputes over song rights with Cobain’s former wife, Courtney Love, Grohl was also less financially solvent than one might expect. Fortunately, the 1995 debut album, Foo Fighters, gave Grohl the confidence to pursue his new dream, and its 1997 follow-up, The Colour and the Shape, consolidated its success.

Impressively, Grohl wrote and recorded Foo Fighters by himself with just the assistance of producer Barrett Jones. Initially, Grohl launched the project as a cathartic pastime to distract himself from the previous year’s tragedy, but it was soon apparent that he had something special.

Reflecting on his post-Nirvana state of mind in a 2005 interview with Classic Rock, Grohl recalled feeling unable to perform in bands anymore. “I just couldn’t imagine [playing in other bands],” he explained, “Because it would just remind me of being in Nirvana; every time I sat down at a drum set, I would think of that.”

When record labels showed interest in his debut album as the Foo Fighters, Grohl decided to form a band ready for live shows. Deciding against working with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, Grohl brought in bassist Nate Mendel and the drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Meanwhile, Nirvana’s former touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as the secondary guitarist.

With this early Foo Fighters lineup, Grohl showcased material from the debut album, including the fourth and final single, ‘Big Me’. When the band released the single in February 1996, they accompanied it with a music video that parodied the comical Mentos mint adverts of the time.

The video was a hit with fans, but Grohl and his bandmates failed to foresee that it would encourage fans to throw mints at them during performances. According to Grohl, these peppermint missiles could pack a punch and weren’t conducive to sound performance. They had no option but to retire the song from setlists for a few years. Grohl reintroduced the song to setlists only when Weezer began to cover ‘Big Me’ during their live shows some six or seven years later.

“[Weezer] played it every … night,” Grohl said in a 2006 interview. “And we actually started to miss it. So once that tour ended and we went back out on our own, we kinda threw it back into the setlist. But we did stop playing that song for a while because, honestly, it’s like being stoned. Those little … things are like pebbles—they hurt.”

Watch the video Foo Fighters made for ‘Big Me’ below.