On Stage: Red Hot Chili Peppers @ Ziggo Dome

It's been a while since I've seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers in a headline show. The last time I saw them, the band played a disappointing and uninspired concert in Nijmegen back in 2007, while touring with the also disappointing Stadium Arcadium album. The following albums were also not that great and I kind of lost interest in the band. I did see them a few times on festivals which did spark the old flame somewhat. Until I watched a few of their festival shows last summer online and saw traces of the Peppers that once stole my heart.

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Ziggo Dome Amsterdam, November 9 2016

The new album The Getaway can't compete with their older albums. To be honest uptil Stadium Arcadium they always delivered except for One Hot Minute. Then their sound changed into more mellow and pop, and the raw edge and funk had disappeared. On The Getaway, although still not great, at least some of the funk has returned here and there but more importantly the band is looking good live on stage. Before they come up, support band Deerhoof take the stage. The experimental rock band has great ideas but it's hard to get into. This is not a band to see in a large venue like this. Also Satomi Matsuzaki's vocals aren't great, which becomes painfully clear in the Def Leppard cover 'Put Some Sugar'. Her singing style with the shrill voice will put many people off to begin with anyway.

Three of the Peppers show up and gather around Chad Smith's green drum kit for a jam. When singer Anthony Kiedis shows up, they kick off with 'Around The World'. That's not a bad start of the show at all. After a few of their hit songs they play the best song of The Getaway, the lead-off single 'Dark Necessities', that sound even better live with the pumping bass. The other three songs of the new record get a lukewarm response which is understandable when you hear them in a hit loaded setlist like tonight.

Bassist Flea as always is all over the place jumping and making funny faces while at the same time playing his signature bass lines. Chad Smith is playing his killer grooves tightly and powerful in his relaxed style, tossing drum sticks into the crowd by the dozen. Josh Klinghoffer seems to be in his own universe at the right side of the stage, shredding his guitar, but sometimes he will join the rest around the drum kit. No matter how good a guitar player he is, he just can't make me forget about the one of a kind John Frusciante.

Anthony Kiedis who is known to sing out of tune regularly is singing surprisingly well tonight and is moving from the center of the stage to either side as a connection for the band. Two additional musicians on keyboard and percussion join the band at the back now and then, but especially when the four Peppers all get close to each other you can hear what still makes this band so good. At times like this they make you forget about the big stage, hall and incredible light show and turn into this exciting band that impressed everyone over 30 years ago. And by the looks of it, these guys are still enjoying playing together.

The light show tonight is incredible, with a ceiling full of tube lights that all can be adjusted individually, both in lighting and vertical position. This way it can form dazzling patterns and sometimes even an arch of light. Together with the huge screens on stage there's plenty to see. In between the songs there are small jams of course, where the band is goofing around. 'Magic Johnson', from the classic Mother's Milk, springs from a little chat about Flea's newest tattoo. The band doesn't seem to have the song about the legendary LA Lakers team from the eighties prepared and in the end Kiedis is surprised they actually are able to play it although he is not joining on vocals to sing the lightning fast lyrics.

For the encore Klinghoffer leads off all by himself to sing the Leonard Cohen song 'Anthem', which is even more appropriate now Cohen has passed away, something Klinghoffer couldn't have been aware of. A snippet of Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' follows where the band is looking a bit lost in one of their jams and Kiedis is walking off and on stage a couple of times. We go way back with 'Mommy, Where's Daddy?' from their first album in 1984 where they were a couple of goof balls that played exciting new rock music that impressed George Clinton a lot and close the night with a rocking and convincing 'Give It Away'. Nowadays the Red Hot Chili Peppers have grown older and more subdued. You could say the Red Hot Chili Peppers are less spicy now than they used to but still can cook up a delicious live show.



All Pictures

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Setlist:
01. Intro Jam
02. Around the World
03. Dani California
04. Scar Tissue
05. Dark Necessities
06. Hey
07. Me & My Friends
08. Go Robot
09. Californication
10. Sick Love
11. Sir Psycho Sexy
12. They're Red Hot
13. Ethiopia
14. Magic Johnson
15. Suck My Kiss
16. Under the Bridge
17. By the Way
Encore:
18. Anthem
19. War Pigs
20. Goodbye Angels
21. Mommy, Where's Daddy?
22. Give It Away

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Flea Is Blowing Off Steam In An Interesting Way

Everyone has heard of Flea of course, the kind and wonderful bass player of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The fact that he was mostly interested in jazz and a very talented trumpet player as a youngster is probably less known. After a gruelling RHCP tour in 2007 they took a long break. Their disappointing show in Nijmegen that year made it very clear that the band was completely exhausted. Flea used that break to blow off steam by recording some music. The result are the songs on Helen Burns.

Flea - Helen Burns (Ronald Says 7 out of 10)

The title is a reference to a character in the Jane Eyre book, who he admires a lot. The songs were never supposed to be released. In 2012 he decides to put it out anyway, to raise money for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. The EP can still be downloaded digitally on silverlakeconservatory.com/helen_burns using the "name your own price" principle. At the same time it was released on a personally signed vinyl edition that has been sold out for quite a while. Now the record is finally seeing a wide release as well.

It's quite an introduction for an EP with only six songs, that was never meant to be heard by a big crowd anyway. But this background is important for what you will find when listening to the record. Flea himself warns that you should definitely not expect any RHCP music, so loyal fans won't be disappointed. This is quite clear when playing the music. The songs feel kind of unfinished. They are experiments and sometimes nothing more than sound scapes. Lots of electronics were used for it. Therefore it's quite hard to really interpret the songs and rating them is not entirely fair.

But at some moments things fall in place. For example when the trumpet makes its entry like in '333' and the accompanying '333 revisited'. 'A Little Bit Of Sanity' starts with a short fast drum solo, which isn't that strange considering RHCP drummers Chad Smith and Jack Irons were lending a hand. On the title track, a slow ballad that sounds like a complete song the most, Patti Smith is helping out. In general the cinematic music has a nostalgic and melancholic sound with a jazzy feel. After a few listens it is becoming more and more intriguing. As an experiment it is definitely interesting enough to look forward to more full material by Flea in the future.



This review has been published on ROAR E-Zine in Dutch over here.

Listen to Helen Burns on Spotify.



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Rock Werchter 2012 Day 4: Attrition Day

We're having a slow start today. All the partying and band hopping is taking its toll. The last day doesn't look that great compared to the other three. Maybe we have a few more surprises coming. Unfortunately both my batteries are empty by now, so I hardly can take pictures today. In the end I was able to squeeze a bit of juice out of them to get a few snap shots. Ah well, at least there's still plenty of Joe Piler left.

Rock Werchter 2012 Day 4, July 1 2012



The Hickey Underworld
This Belgian band is certainly waking us up. Their heavy garage rock is dark, loud and tight. They are playing full of fire and are breaking the dark clouds that gathered above the stage. We get the first bit of rain on the festival site. Some of their songs are supported by disturbing and vague music videos on the big video screens. It may not be for every one, which is clear from the empty spaces in the crowd, or for the faint hearted. But it definitely is a convincing performance on the main stage.

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The Vaccines
Which cannot be said from The Vaccines. They wrote a few catchy rock songs and were one of the hyped bands two years ago. But singer Justin Young doesn't sound so great, especially at the beginning where his voice is awful and off-key, mostly in the lower registers. It does get better and there's a lot of people who are enjoying songs like 'Wetsuit' and 'Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)'. But their other songs are pretty thin and that shows.



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Dropkick Murphys
Good songs is also what's lacking a bit from this band, who are not really from Ireland, but from Boston. However they make up for it with a lot of energy and good spirit. And many drinks, since the members don't appear all to be completely sober. It is their last show of the tour and they promise to give everything. The main stage turns into a big pub and a massive American Irish party. So who cares that they seem to be playing the same song for an hour. Dropkick Murphys are definitely going out in style.


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Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Noel Gallagher is playing more subtle rock songs. It's a totally different cup of tea compared to the Dropkick Murphys and less of a spectacle. But Gallagher's album is full of nice summer songs and he's making the music speak for itself. It surely isn't Oasis, so it may be a let down for some folks. Still Gallagher sounds good, his voice is clear and it's definitely nice to enjoy with a cold beer. And the Oasis fans still get what they want when he's playing 'Don't Look Back In Anger'.



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Florence + The Machine
Florence Welch has a bit of a doubtful reputation when it comes to singing her songs live. There have been several occasions in the past where she was sounding off-key. She solved this by adding a backing singer who's taking on the parts where she could be failing. This works very well. She's also looking very active once and a while running around on and off stage while singing. This was not obvious from her vocals which makes me a bit sceptic about what she really was singing. Normally you can tell when people are running and singing at the same time. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. She does turn it into a strong and lively performance.



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Red Hot Chili Peppers And then it's already time for the last act of the festival. I feel they definitely need to convince me again after their weak last couple of albums and a disappointing performance a few years ago in Nijmegen. But after a couple of songs it's clear I don't have to worry about that. Flea, Anthony Kiedis and new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer are bouncing around stage, while Chad Smith is sounding as tight and groovy as he's always been. Kiedis' vocals are even quite decent tonight, which is not always the case. He's still off-key once and a while especially in 'Californication', but it's not really disturbing.

Although Klinghoffer is obviously an accepted and full member of the band now, he cannot make us forget about John Frusciante. His guitar playing isn't of the same high level. Especially his falsetto vocals and harmonies with Kiedis can't match those of Frusciante. But it's great to hear 'Scar Tissue', 'By The Way', 'Sir Psycho Sexy' and even 'They're Red Hot' being played with a lot of energy. Jams by Flea and KlingHoffer are the upbeat to some of the songs and add variety to the set. Of course 'Give It Away' closes the set with close-ups of festival visitors including us (spot me if you can find a decent video and win a beer). I definitely gained my love for this band back. Hopefully they will start making decent records again too.



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Traditionally after a short delay fireworks close the festival which cannot describe this edition better. This must have been one of the best Rock Werchter editions so far I've visited. We hardly saw any weak performances. Instead there were a few surprises and many bands excelling. All the head liners totally lived up to their status with convincing performances. But the real difference were the visitors. People were just amazing this year. Every crowd was full of energy, responded great to the artists and were just completely ready to party. The 2013 edition is already in our calendar. See you next year!

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Rock Werchter 2012 Day 1
Rock Werchter 2012 Day 2
Rock Werchter 2012 Day 3

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Red Hot Chili Peppers Are Leaning Back Too Much

Bad news last year when John Frusciante announced that he left the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Peppers had a period without him before when he was replaced with Dave Navarro, but that proved they couldn't do without Frusciante. Their great comeback Californication was their last success album creatively. The successors didn't come near and Stadium Arcadium showed a quenched band, both on the album and on stage.


Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You (Ronald Says 6 out of 10)
Josh Klinghoffer is replacing Frusciante this time, but unfortunately cannot bring the fire they need. His guitar playing is good, but he songs are more of the same, even though they promised new experiments and directions before the release. Adding some piano and cowbell can hardly be regarded as experimental. I'm afraid the gap Frusciante left is bigger than they thought. He was important both for song writing and sound, not only for his unique guitar playing.

There's hardly any song that sticks out or that even comes close to the best songs in their impressive catalogue. According to Flea they didn't put the best songs on this album, but the most distinctive ones instead. I wish they hadn't.

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New Video And Looks For Red Hot Chili Peppers

The first single 'The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie' of the long awaited upcoming album of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has surfaced on the internet for a couple of weeks. So now here's the accompanying video with a new look for singer Anthony Kiedis. Including a "cool" 70s porn moustache. What do you think (of the video, song or the moustache)?

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Frusciante Supposingly Has Left The Red Hot Chili Peppers

According to MusicRadar a source close to the Red Hot Chili Peppers has stated in an exclusive interview that guitarist John Frusciante has left the band. "He's interested in doing his own thing, his own albums - the whole big rock band machinery just doesn't appeal to him anymore." that source mentions. "Josh Klinghoffer has been playing with the group for a couple of months now". Frusciante left the band before in 1992 but rejoined them in 1999 after fighting a heroin addiction. Read the full story here. Read more!

Chickenfoot going on tour

I heard a couple of songs this week from the super band Chickenfoot. It sounds like good old rock 'n roll. Never heard of em? You probably heard of one of the band members: Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Joe Satriani (Guitar hero), Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony (both Van Halen).

Their album is expected to be released somewhere between April and June. And this week they anounced they will also be touring Europe this summer. At that time it didn't mention anything about coming over to the Netherlands but today I found out they will be playing over here in June: 26th of June at the Waerdse Tempel in Heerhugowaard and also on the festival Bosbop. Check out the complete schedule over here. Never been to that venue Waerdse Tempel but it may be worth the ride to check these guys out. Tickets will start selling tomorrow at 45 euros. That may be a bit steep but it may be worth it to see this guys rock the house!
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