Days before Taylor Hawkins died, the Foo Fighters drummer was lured out of his Paraguay hotel room to meet a 9-year-old street drummer who was banging away on his songs.
Emma Sofía and her father Julius Peralta had tickets to see the band at the Asunciónico music festival on March 22, but the event was canceled amid heavy flooding, according to Nexstar.
The fans then got word that the Foo Fighters were staying at the Sheraton hotel in Asuncion.
“We took her drum kit and went,” Peralta reportedly said.
Viral singalongs of the band’s song “The Pretender” and Nirvana’s “In Bloom” ensued, as Sofía pounded the skins while throngs of fans accompanied her on vocals.
The impromptu jam session eventually drew Hawkins out of the hotel to look for the talented and persistent young percussionist.
As the smiling late drummer posed for a now-viral picture with his awestruck apprentice, dozens of fans were in the background cheering for the beaming duo.
“Dreams come true,” Peralta captioned the photo in English on Twitter.
“Since my daughter found out that the Foo Fighters were coming, she started a campaign to meet them,” he wrote in Spanish. “Today we took her drums to play in front of the Sheraton and look who came out at her call.”
Three days later, Hawkins would be found dead in a Colombia hotel room, reportedly filled with a cache of drugs, at the age of 50.
Emma’s parents did not immediately inform the 9-year-old of his untimely death, explaining online they hoped to spare her “a lot of pain” before her Friday night debut performance.
They “didn’t have the courage to break the magic of that unforgettable moment,” her father wrote. He ended the post with “There goes our hero RIP Taylor Hawkins,” a reference to the Foo’s smash hit “My Hero.”
The cause of Hawkins’ death remains under investigation.
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