US band excited by Robbie's BGT cover version

Goo Goo Dolls have revealed how excited they were by Britain's Got Talent contestant Robbie Kennedy's performance of their smash hit Iris.

Speaking after they placed their hands in cement at Hollywood's Rock Walk, they said they were amazed to see how the song still touches people.

Vocalist John Rzeznik said: "It's such a blessing to have something like that happen and it shows you the power of television and a song that still touches people 15 years later.

"I was really amazed by that, it's one of those things where you can't believe it's happening. Most things don't go your way so to have something like that come along is a real gift."

However he added he has mixed feelings about their biggest hit, which spent 18 weeks at number one on the Billboard Charts and was ranked number one on Billboard's top 100 pop songs between 1992 and 2012.

"I am so grateful for that song but at some point in my life I am going to be like: "Come on already! Will somebody just listen to another song by us?"

The New York band were cheered on by friends and family from home as they took their place on the historic Rock Walk on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and John said it marked the real achievements of their career.

"To be able to have not necessarily ever been the biggest band in the world but to have gone out and made a living doing something you lie in your bed and dream about doing and then to sit here all this time later and to have done it, it's pretty unbelievable."

The band's new album Magnetic will be released in the UK on June 10.

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.