Red Hot Chili Peppers – gigography
If you’d like to see a list of their gigs with set lists, comments and reviews, from 1983. till now, please, let me redirect you to The Side, a website by The Side who has them all listed. Thanks for your hard work! I’m sorry to say, but I’m not able to give you reviews of all their concerts as I’ve been to only one. But, I’m very proud to present you my Live in Indjija story, from the fabulous concert that took place here in Serbia and totaly blew me away by their awesome performance. Here, I’m leaving you with my review of the way they perform live in general, created as a product of seeing a couple of their concerts on DVD, and of course using my first (and hopefully not the last) time experience in Indjija!
The Way They Perform Live
Since their formation in 1983, the popular band Red Hot Chili Peppers has been touring every year, giving their best in every single live performance – no matter if their audience was just a small group of people or if they managed to fill a stadium, they kept making fabulous shows – ones whose energy you could feel long after and sound you could hardly ever forget.
Their first live performance was at the Rhythm Lounge, to a small group of approximately 30 people. Only one song had been made and their performance consisted of the band improvising music while Anthony rapped a poem he had written for the occasion, called Out in L.A. (which, later on, appeared on their first album). Those in charge of promoting the show were so enthusiastic about their energetic performance that they asked the band to return once again in the week that followed. Soon after, they have been asked to do more shows at various LA clubs and musical venues… And that’s how it all started, the rest is history! (Read more about the band here)
From then on, the band’s name – Red Hot Chili Peppers – has been used as a synonym to wild, crazy ’stage rocking’ performances filled with energy. That was the way they used to play, and that is the way they play now. Beside enjoying great music when seeing them live one will usually enjoy in a good show as well, because, as Anthony says in his Sikamikanico lyric: “we don’t just play, we display”, and Flea also claims how they’re not just music artists, but comedians as well. From early in the days the chemistry they’ve been having together attracted the attention of large audiences. The way they interact with each other, exchanging looks and smiles, telling inside joks or just having plain fun while, at the same time, interacting with their audience, is completely unforced and natural. People can feel the band is truly having so much fun while performing and creating the unforgettable atmosphere with their positive energy, which they can easily transfer to anyone watching.
Red Hot Chili Peppers have been totally unpredictable as well, especially at the beginning of their career, when they used to experiment a lot, including something new and refreshing every time they would appear on stage. So, once, they performed completely naked, wearing nothing but socks on their genitals, which was soon to become their regular way of performing. In their early days they’ve been doing a lot of crazy things, not having in mind to attract anyone’s attention that way, doing those things just because they felt like it at the moment, but that was exactly why they became popular at the first place – the unique, one and only stage wildness that no one but Red Hot Chili Peppers possess. As Flea once said: ‘We do nothing that takes a big, expensive stage show. Our wildness is pretty low-budget. It doesn’t cost much for a sock’.
Nowadays, even though their live performances may seem calmer and more ‘music oriented’ to their earliest fans, the same energy and strong chemistry are still alive, and it looks like not even the ravages of time can take those away from them. They certainly don’t play like a bunch of confused 20 year olds anymore, they improved, as well as matured – they don’t pour the paint all over themselves, dress weird, or do something else to look crazy anymore – but they’ll always remain young at hearts and produce that youthful, uncontrollable, almost contagious energy when on stage, appealing to the wide range of dynamic audiences.
To me…Rocking, honestly, is the most important thing that a show could ever have to offer. Just pure, heart and soul, rock power. But if you can do that and put on a spectacular performance at the same time…then, that’s my favorite combination…Everything I do, everything I eat, everything I breathe, everything I touch between the shows, it is all… for the sake of the next show.(Anthony on MTV essential)…The show is important, we take everything seriously, and we want it to be the greatest night that we could possible give to people… Every show we do, we get together, we hold hands before we go on, and we’re like, let’s give them the greatest show that they’ve ever had in their lives tonight… and we take it seriously, I mean, it’s everything to us!(Flea on MTV essential)
And, relly, they just put too much effort and energy into every one of their live performances for anyone to stay indifferent.
