Smells Like Rickrolling: Watch Foo Fighters Pull a Prank on Tokyo Festivalgoers

It’s been 10 years since the very first rickroll occurred, involving an unexpected appearance of the 1987 Rick Astley hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." But it seems this prank never gets old. Foo Fighters, who performed at Tokyo’s Summer Sonic Festival on August 20, rickrolled their fans in the most epic way.

While performing at the annual rock music festival, the band's frontman Dave Grohl (who was a drummer for Nirvana) invited English singer Rick Astley onstage. The band began to play an intro similar to Nirvana's hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; however, the tune quickly evolved into a rock version of Astley's hit "Never Gonna Give You Up," which was released 30 years ago and turned into an internet phenomenon two decades later.

Rickrolling had reportedly initially started on 4chan, an imageboard website, in 2007. The prank is a form of bait-and-switch using a disguised hyperlink. Those led to a music video believing that they are accessing some unrelated material are said to be rickrolled. In real life, rickrolling can be performed by interrupting an event with a video or audio recording of a song-meme.