Red Hot Chili Peppers, London Docklands Arena, 03.08.03
Posted by Phil McCann on 03.24.2003
Mellow-funk-rock-dance-fest!
This column is written by a cynic with a stick up his ass, just for the record.
In the music world at the moment everything is going haywire…ish. Linkin Park have had government-like security for their new album ‘Meteora’, but judging from the single ‘Somewhere I Belong’ it’s nothing more than the same pop, but without the catchy hooks. With ‘In The End’ you could easily sing-along, now you have to cringe at ‘I wanna feel, I wanna heal’. And Josh Nason it seems that they’re not too good live either. Also Limp Bizkit seem to have gone insane, recording tracks with Snoop Dogg and Bubba Sparxx. Now I know Fred was never sane, but at least there was always the attitude and the rock, now its just the attitude…well at least until the album comes out and we learn just how much hip-hop there is in rap-metal.
Now onto some more major band news- Red Hot Chili Peppers played the Docklands arena for the second time in a year, and I was there…for the second time in a year. In my mind the Chili Peppers are one of the best bands ever, and with their latest album ‘By The Way’ presenting a more mellow and mature style it seemed that they were only going to evolve into an even better entity, a mixture of old and new. This was fine by me, the self-titled Chili’s album actually annoyed me with its pointlessness and overall sound, so since then I’ve enjoyed the band’s journey to maturity, however I wasn’t so sure if this would play out so well on stage.
Last year they were amazing, mind-blowing, any other word that describes how it feels to see legends standing twenty feet away from you. This year, I’m not so sure. They started out with the same two tracks as they did in 2002- ‘By The Way’ and ‘Scar Tissue’, and went on to play ‘Can’t Stop’, ‘The Zephyr Song’, ‘Otherside’, ‘Californiacation’ et al. This was all great to see live, but the magic had worn off. I’d seen the same songs last year, and they sounded better, for some reason Anthony’s voice sounded off, like the audience somehow overawed him.
This sounds like I was disappointed, and that is far from the truth. I thought the Chili Peppers were again great, but there were some things that were different to last time.
Firstly the crowd, and that made a hell of a difference. Now I’m not an elitist, but I’m going to sound like one in a few moments time, because whereas last year the crowd was full of long-time Chili’s fans who had been lucky enough to get a fabled ticket to see the band, this year the crowd had a large contingent of ‘By The Way’ fans who had only heard of the band through the press-attention for the album. Now this is great for the band- they’re being accepted on a huge level now and their sales must be through the roof, but at the gig it meant that I was glared at for jumping around, walking through the crowd, even accidentally bumping into people. There were girls in high heels in the middle of the crowd, hell there were kids who’s Dad was encouraging them to go for the gaps when people stepped apart. For some reason this made the gig seem cheap to me, like it wasn’t a big party for the Chili Pepper’s fans, but the realisation that the band are no longer rock stars- they’ve been forced into the role of pop stars. Think of that what you will, but it spoiled some of the night for me.
Secondly the band kept virtually the same set-list as last year, but this time without a ten-minute instrumental ending, instead opting to end with ‘Me And My Friends’, which was great, but it just seemed like they had lost some of their spark and were playing because they had to tour for the album. Hell they didn’t play ‘Suck My Kiss’…I wanted to get funky, yes like a chicken.
However let that not take away from the great bridges that Frusciante and Flea played, let that not take away from the feeling of seeing ‘Under The Bridge’ live again, and let that not take away from the fact that the Red Hot Chili Peppers left the crowd in awe of their legendary status. If this was a tour they weren’t thrilled to do, then it was a tour that the fans were thrilled to be a part of.
The 411: Not so magical, but now I’ve seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers twice, that’s gotta be worth something…surely.
