Foo Fighters ‘Rickroll’ Westboro Baptist Protestors With Rick Astley Hit

The Foo Fighters took on Westboro Baptist Church protestors at their Kansas, City, Miss., tour stop with a “rickroll.”

Foo Fighters RickRoll Westboro Baptist Church

Frontman Dave Grohl and his bandmates Pat Smear, Nate Mendel, Taylor Hawkins and Chris Shifflet headed outside of the Sprint Center to “rickroll” Westboro Baptist Church protestors that had gathered outside the venue. Blasting from the pickup truck was Rick Astley‘s ’80s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The musicians were also holding signs that read, “You got Rick roll’d again)” and “Keep it clean.”

A “rickroll” generally refers to the viral Internet prank in which a link purported to be for something else, leads the clicker to the Rick Astley song. The Foo Fighters’ take on the prank has been widely praised for being a humorous tactic to troll the Westboro Baptist Church.

The Westboro Baptist Church previously tried to protest a Foo Fighter’s concert in Kansas City in 2011. Westboro founder Fred Phelps had then written, “[The Foo Fighters] have a platform and should be using it to encourage obedience to God; instead they teach every person who will listen all things contrary to him: fornication, adultery, idolatry, fags.”

That time around, the Foo Fighters confronted the protestors by serenading them with their song, “Keep It Clean (Hot Buns).”