A beautiful review of the Saskatoon show
This review is from The Star Phoenix, a local newspaper in Saskatoon and it was written by Bill Robertson. As usual when there’s just one review of a particular show, the best bits of the review will be cited, the rest will be under the “more” link.
“…On the large stage in front of Smith, guitarist John Frusciante, dressed like a slumming aristocrat but playing like a demon, contorted himself all over that worn Strat of his, showing the six-string wizardry that helps elevate the Peppers to its lofty status among rock bands…”
Together for 23 years, the Red Hot Chili Peppers had all the energy of four men that age, bouncing and boinging around the stage Tuesday night at Credit Union Centre.
No, the years of recording, touring, going down, cleaning up, changing partners, changing personnel and even burying one of their bandmates have done little to diminish the energy the Peppers — living most wildly up to their name — showed as they gave a raving Saskatoon audience its share of the hot stuff.
Out on the road in support of their recent double-CD release, Stadium Arcadium, the RHCP took the stage a little later than the audience would have liked with such songs as the radio hit Dani California, plus Charlie and We Believe, all from the new album. They also pulled up songs from their large catalogue and had the crowd on its feet and in their hands.
With Chad Smith dressed like a hulking house painter powering the band from behind his big battery of Pearl drums, the Peppers went for crowd pleasers like the title track from Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Parallel Universe and Scar Tissue, from Californication. These three tunes, particularly Scar Tissue, drove the capacity crowd to ecstatics, dancing in the aisles, singing raucously along, and howling with glee.
On the large stage in front of Smith, guitarist John Frusciante, dressed like a slumming aristocrat but playing like a demon, contorted himself all over that worn Strat of his, showing the six-string wizardry that helps elevate the Peppers to its lofty status among rock bands. Meanwhile, far across the stage, the usual wild man Flea, though dressed in his standard tattoos and bizarre pants, poured himself far more into his funky bass drive than into setting new records for the high bounce. His bass bounce is what we want to hear, and he had it underneath every tune.
And running amidst the group was lead singer Anthony Kiedis, dressed in cropped pants, a vest, and gloves. When he danced onto the stage the crowd roared its approval, and he kept up the sexy dance, writhing in front of the band and before the huge set of screens that gave close-ups of the musicians and of that crazy mix of Californian surf and urban sprawl that powers the imagination of the Peppers.
By press time Frusciante opted to tone things down a little by doing a solo version of the old Carole King chestnut Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. From there the rest of the band stepped up and went back to Stadium Arcadium for Snow (Hey Oh). A cellphone call back to the concert from the road revealed that they also went to the Mother’s Milk album for Nobody Weird Like Me and later the title track from Californication.
The warm-up act for the evening was The Mars Volta, an eight-man outfit that segued from recorded Mexican horns into an opening orchestration of sonic smash that did its best to approximate the sound of the fire-bombing of Dresden. From there the guys — two of whom used to be with At The Drive In — veered between hard rock ballad and thrashing hard rocker, giving way to self-indulgence between songs and going for the aural barrage. Any instrumental nuance, and there was plenty, was lost in the super-amplified crunch, and lost on the mostly uninterested audience.
