On This Day: 1,000 Fans Gather to Convince Foo Fighters to Play Their Tiny Italian City by Performing “Learn to Fly” in Unison

In 2014, Fabio Zaffagnini launched a crowdfunding campaign after devising a plan to persuade Foo Fighters to play in his small city of Cesena, Italy with a population of less than 100,000.

Within several months, Zaffagnini raised more than €44,788 (approximately $49,100) to make his dream a reality by staging a 1,000-person band tribute to Foo Fighters. Dubbed Rockin’1000, 1,000 musicians gathered at the Parco Ippodromo Park on July 26, 2015, and performed a synchronized version of Foo Fighters’ 1999 hit “Learn to Fly.”

To find the best possible band to perform for the project, Zaffagnini sorted through thousands of video auditions before making the final cut of 350 guitarists, 250 singers, 250 drummers, and 150 bassists. Composer Marco Sabiu, who has worked with Ennio Morricone, Luciano Pavarotti, Françoise Hardy, Christopher Lee, and Kylie Minogue, conducted the 1,000 musicians.

“Italy’s a country where dreams cannot easily come true, but it’s a land of passion and creativity,” said Zaffagnini in the video asking the band to come to Cesena. “What we did here is just a huge, huge miracle. Our call is to ask you, the Foo Fighters, to come and play for us, to come and play in here, to give a concert to all of us in Cesena.”

Once released in August 2015, the video of the 1,000-person band playing in unison went viral and has since (as of July 2024) been viewed more than 64 million times.

After seeing the video, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl responded with a YouTube video in Italian and promised that Foo Fighters would perform in the city.

“Ciao Cesena,” said Grohl, who thanked the musicians for making the video and admitted that he only spoke “just a bit” of Italian but promised that the band was coming to Cesena adding “Ci vediamo a presto, Cesena” (“See you soon, Cesena”).

[RELATED: Mint Candies, Weezer, and the Story Behind the Song Foo Fighters Banned Live for Nearly a Decade, “Big Me”]

Foo Fighters Land in Cesena

At the time, the band already had two dates scheduled in Italy in at Casalecchio Di Reno’s Unipol Arena on November 13 and the Palaolimpico Torino in Turin on November 14. In June of 2015, Grohl broke his leg during a June concert in Sweden and was performing most of the tour sitting on a Foo Fighters logoed throne on stage with his leg in a cast.

The band kept their promise, kicking off their European tour in Cesena, Italy at the Cesena Hippodrome Park on November 3, 2015, and opened the show with “Learn to Fly.”

“We’re here for a very special reason,” said Grohl to the crowd of mostly Rockin’1000 performers. “This has never happened before. It’s a f–king revolution.” Grohl added, “I f–king cried. To see you people, singing our song for the whole f—ing world. To me, it was the greatest moment.”

During the evening, Grohl noticed one of the mohawked drummers from the video and invited him on stage for a cover of Queen’s “Under Pressure.” The 22-song set predominantly featured Foo Fighters songs including “Times Like These,” “Best of You,” and “Big Me,” along with covers of the Rolling Stones‘ “Miss You,” Pink Floyd‘s “In the Flesh?” and a Queen-Rush medley.

Rockin’1000 Today

Since their first viral performance in 2015, Rockin’1000 continues to perform and call themselves the “biggest band on earth.”

In 2016, the band performed David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” at the Orogel Stadium in Cesana, along with covers of songs by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, AC/DC, and The White Stripes. Since then, the band has staged performances with 1,000 people performing songs by The Who, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Deep Purple, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and more around the world.

Rockin’1000 also performed full concerts at the Stade de France, in Paris, France in 2019 and the Allianz Parque, São Paulo, Brazil in 2022.

A collection of stories behind how some musicians traveled from other countries to perform with Rockin’1000 was featured in Anita Rivaroli’s 2020 documentary We Are the Thousand – The Incredible Story of Rockin’1000.

“Musicians from all over the world came together and are giving us an incredible show,” said Zaffagnini. “They’re just like themselves, but they perform like rock stars, with no one standing out—showing us that with passion, dedication, and f–king hard work, we can transform our lives.

So stick together, no more conflicts, and play rock and roll.”

Photo: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Harley-Davidson