Phoenix crowd loved John’s solo…
Here’s an East Valley Tribune review of the last night’s RHCP show in Phoenix, Arizona, USA; at the Glendale Arena. The best part first, then you can read the whole thing under the cut…many thanks to Chris Hansen Orf, the author, for saying such wonderful things about our John.:smile:
The biggest surprise of the evening came when Frusciante – one of the true guitar heroes of the alt-rock era, often brimming with licks that sound like they were culled from Jimi Hendrix and Funkadelic’s great guitarist Eddie Hazel – slowed things down for a stunning solo take on Simon & Garfunkel’s “For Emily (Wherever I May Find Her) that had the crowd holding up their cell phone lights.
Not even a steady thunderstorm that drenched concert-goers as they made their way into Glendale Arena Monday evening could cool off the near capacity crowd — many still sporting wet hair and damp clothes — once alt-rock heroes the Red Hot Chili Peppers took the stage.
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EntertainmentBassist Flea, drummer Chad Smith and guitarist John Frusciante warmed up with a blistering, improvised funk number before lead singer Anthony Kiedis, sporting long black shorts and a black vest over a tank top T-shirt, bounded out from the shadows as the band kicked into “Can’t Stop,” followed up by their new single “Dani California” from their latest (and first ever No. 1) album “Stadium Arcadium.”
For as many alternative hits as the band has had in their 20-plus year recording history, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are still best experienced live, where the band is in constant motion, from Flea’s headbanging and Kiedis’ pogo leaps and shadowboxing to Frusciante’s hair-whipping guitar antics.
While the Chili Peppers have long relied on funk and punk mixed with elements of psychedelic rock, it’s only in their later career that the band has been able to translate their incessant grooves into bonafide pop songs, and it was the latter half of the band’s catalog that drew the biggest response from the crowd.
“To me the best Chili Peppers stuff is from ‘Californication’ (1999) on,” said Tempe’s Rowland Perkins, 34. “The older stuff is fun, but they’ve become much better songwriters.”
The band dipped into their older bag of tricks for the title track from 1991’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” but mainly concentrated on tracks from “Californication” (“Scar Tissue,” “Otherside”), “By the Way” from 2002 (“Don’t Forget Me,” “Throw Away Your Television” and the title track) and a bevy of tunes from “Stadium Arcadium” (“Snow [Hey Oh],” “Charlie,” “Tell Me Baby” and “Readymade”).
The biggest surprise of the evening came when Frusciante – one of the true guitar heroes of the alt-rock era, often brimming with licks that sound like they were culled from Jimi Hendrix and Funkadelic’s great guitarist Eddie Hazel – slowed things down for a stunning solo take on Simon & Garfunkel’s “For Emily (Wherever I May Find Her) that had the crowd holding up their cell phone lights.
Neo prog-rockers The Mars Volta opened the show promptly at 7:30 p.m. with a 19 minute excursion into feedback and ’60s hard rock riffs that sounded something like “Bitches Brew”-era Miles Davis — an experimental cacophony of noise with melody trying to break through. The rest of their hour long set was much of the same, as Volta mainstays Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala led the band though long passages of rock fusion that was at times compelling, but hampered by less-than-crystal-clear sound quality, rendering Bixler-Zavala’s vocals incoherent.
“I loved the lead singer and his electric moves,” said Ahwatukee Foothill’s Erica Gomez, 22, of The Mars Volta’s energetic frontman. “But personally, I think they’re better on record, where you can hear everything.”
