Another beautiful review of the San Diego show…
OC Register‘s Ben Wener has written a wonderful review of the RHCP’s San Diego show last Tuesday. As always, I will let you read a sneak preview, and then the whole thing…
What makes the Chili Peppers a double-threat, however, is their playing, which has rarely been fiercer.
Kiedis is a tremendous presence, Flea perhaps the most gifted bassist going, and if there’s a steadier syncopation master than Smith working at such a level, I haven’t come across him. Those are important elements in this alchemy, for sure, but the reason why the group is cresting atop an all-time high rests entirely in Frusciante’s hands.
Having battled back demons (including a lengthy drug addiction), his virtuosity is now shining unblemished, carrying the group through jam after jam that, unlike the Mars Volta’s meandering, seemingly endless opening set, actually takes you on a journey worth taking to an ebullient destination worth visiting.
That Kiedis has made a habit of turning the mic over to Frusciante at each show for an oldie – at Weenie Roast it was “How Deep Is Your Love,” in San Diego it was “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” – seems to me a nod to the guitarist’s redefined, stepped-up role in the band this decade. With their support, he has become a true guitar god – and his greatness has cast light back on the Chili Peppers as a whole.
the whole review
Here’s a brief conversation I find myself having every other week lately – every time the name Red Hot Chili Peppers comes up, actually. It happened again an hour or so before I caught the band’s headlining turn Tuesday night at the ipayOne Center at the Sports Arena in San Diego.
Whoever: “You heard ‘Stadium Arcadium’?”
Me: “Yeah. I like it. A lot. One of their best, I think.”
Whoever: “I dunno, man. For some reason I can’t get into it. It’s just too much.”
Absolutely it is.
And that’s the point.
The Chili Peppers are peaking – and have been all decade, ever since 1999’s multiplatinum “Californication” revived and streamlined their freaky-styley funk-punk approach and restored the trajectory toward consistently expansive popularity begun by 1991’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.”
What better time, then, to unveil a bonanza of creativity? If, as rock history suggests, every significant band of substantial longevity deserves a double-album – that is, such groups come to feel entitled to go over the top and entertain mild-to-wild delusions of grandeur – then this is the Chili Peppers’ moment to bask in indulgence. They’ve wrapped themselves in so many similar yet effective tracks that it’s hard to know where to dive in, and harder still to find a focal point.
To me, that’s a clear sign of a great double-album, whether jarringly eclectic or thematically tight. The White Album, “Physical Graffiti,” “Blonde on Blonde,” “Exile on Main St.,” “Sign ‘o’ the Times,” “Double Nickels on the Dime,” “The River,” “London Calling” and “Sandinista!” (right, that was a triple) – they’re all sprawling, brilliant messes that work no matter which side you start with, no matter how you shuffle them in your iPod.
“Stadium Arcadium” belongs just below their ranks but well ahead of bloated blunders like Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion” sets. Yet, as with GNR at its MTV saturation point, it’s almost demanded that the Chili Peppers come correct with a massive arena extravaganza on tour. You name an album “Stadium Arcadium,” you’d better have the live goods to back it up.
And, man, does the Chili Peppers’ new show have the goods. It far surpasses my expectations, in fact.
Any analysis has to start with the obvious: the spectacle, which up to now had never been the band’s strong suit. Even on their thoroughly satisfying outing with the Flaming Lips earlier this decade – when their instinctive methods really began to click like never before – they were still routinely upstaged by Wayne Coyne and his furry-costumed friends.
What they’ve unfurled on this tour, however, is nothing short of astonishing. Usually it’s U2 that leads the way regarding mondo concert gimmicks – Bono and the boys introduce a heart-shaped pit or a curtain of lights, then suddenly everyone’s copying it.
This time they may have been beat. The Chili Peppers’ stage itself remains sparse – just anchorman Chad Smith’s drum kit at dead-center, with stacks o’ amps on either side for supremo bassist Flea and guitarist extraordinaire John Frusciante. But the backdrop rises as high as the roof, then extends out across the arena floor via wide tendrils that hover over the throngs below.
Which would be no big deal if those rigs that resemble railroad tracks merely flashed bright lights now and then. They do precisely that at times – the first glimpse, actually, engulfs the audience in red – but more often it’s used for projecting images, most startlingly of the band itself in action.
Talk about larger than life – this as literal as that cliché has ever gotten, often making it seem as though Flea were thumping out grooves and Anthony Kiedis were barking out knotty, impressionistic verbiage across an IMAX screen suspended from the rafters.
It’s a constantly mutating technological wonder, and for once I was happy to be further from the stage – the better to take it all in. For “Californication” the construction is filled with “Sin City”-esque animation. For “Throw Away Your Television” it gets strobed-out and littered with flickering computer imagery.
For Frusciante’s many soaring solos – few guitarists can achieve his synthesis of soulfulness and skill these days – the ceiling glows and pulsates while giant screens splash his Fender fretwork in extreme close-up, like Hendrix in “Woodstock.” At other times we’re treated to green Chili Peppers, blue Chili Peppers, yellow Chili Peppers – a full Technicolor array.
It’s a different sight for a different scope, but it’s clearly the grandest dazzler since U2’s football-field-wide PopMart backdrop was introduced in 1997. Only, there’s a crucial difference: U2 was overwhelmed by PopMart. It swallowed the band whole; rather than becoming intertwined with the playing (as at the best Pink Floyd shows), the spectacle overshadowed the music altogether.
With the Chili Peppers, it’s just the opposite – it enhances their energy, their vitality; it adds vibrancy. When Kiedis leaps about, hopping his way from flailing Frusciante to goofy-footin’ Flea, he doesn’t get lost amid the enormity of it all. Depending on the song and the graphics, he and the power trio surrounding him can be either the center of this stellar display – its every torrent seeming to emanate from their positions on stage – or serve as accents to more eye-grabbing visuals adorning the arena.
It has to be in an arena, by the way, and the Chili Peppers are wise to play older models like this sauna-hot San Diego haunt and the Forum, where they stop for two shows next week. A place like Staples, with its triple-decker skyboxes, might put too much space between the audience and the surrounding glitz. At places like the Forum, it plays like a Big ’70s Rock Show given a massive makeover.
That alone would be enough to move the Chili Peppers into that small circle of beloved acts – U2, the Stones, Pearl Jam, Madonna, very few others – that can wow casual concert-goers with artifice while deeply pleasing hard-core fans with superb song choices.
It helps that their wealth of material enables them to present a multifaceted set, one that doesn’t rely too heavily on “Arcadium,” lest it bore some people. Instead, it excites from the get-go with hits like “Dani California” (second only to Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” as Single of the Year) and “Scar Tissue,” then shifts into newer bits before finishing with a hit parade – “By the Way,” “Californication,” “Give It Away.”
What makes the Chili Peppers a double-threat, however, is their playing, which has rarely been fiercer.
Kiedis is a tremendous presence, Flea perhaps the most gifted bassist going, and if there’s a steadier syncopation master than Smith working at such a level, I haven’t come across him. Those are important elements in this alchemy, for sure, but the reason why the group is cresting atop an all-time high rests entirely in Frusciante’s hands.
Having battled back demons (including a lengthy drug addiction), his virtuosity is now shining unblemished, carrying the group through jam after jam that, unlike the Mars Volta’s meandering, seemingly endless opening set, actually takes you on a journey worth taking to an ebullient destination worth visiting.
That Kiedis has made a habit of turning the mic over to Frusciante at each show for an oldie – at Weenie Roast it was “How Deep Is Your Love,” in San Diego it was “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” – seems to me a nod to the guitarist’s redefined, stepped-up role in the band this decade. With their support, he has become a true guitar god – and his greatness has cast light back on the Chili Peppers as a whole.
They’ve been L.A. legends for a while. Now they’re California kings whose stature grows more outsized every time they return – and warrants a warts-and-all double-disc cornucopia. You Forum fans had best give them one amazing homecoming.
