Ok folks, this is a tough one to write about, but I'm going to do it while its as fresh in the head as a stroll up Queen Street. I'm feeling quite conflicted after a great gig that was ruined by a terrible finale.
To put it simply, the Chili's 5 years ago played one of the top five gigs I've ever seen. Tonight they matched that for 80 minutes, and then completely sabotaged it during a turgid and completely fetid encore.
The new Vector Arena is I'm pleased to say an outstanding venue. It really will be the site of many a great show in years to come. And tonight for the majority of the show the Chili's did what they do best, they galloped through 80 minutes of crowd pleasing virtuoso funk rock/ blues, featuring material primarily from their excellent last two CD's, Stadium Arcadium and By The Way. John Frusciante, as in ChCh 5 years ago, was the star of the show. The spirit of Hendrix lives in this man- and when I get round to compiling the list of top guitar players I've seen he's probably in the top two or three.
Flea is incomparable on bass, and still plays with an unexplainable vigour of youth even though by his own admission his daughter is older than some of the songs they play these days. And in Chad Smith he has a wonderfully solid foil on drums for those brilliant between-song impromptu jams. And thats why you go to a Chili's gig- to see the spirit of spontaneity, and to be taken on a wild ride.
Unfortunately for the encore the spirit was sucked into a lifeless void, so dramatically that much headscratching and venting of disappointment was being articulated by the 12,000 punters walking out after the sellout second gig for the weekend. After smoking the crowd with my personal show highlight I Could've Lied from Blood Sugar Sex Magic, they then proceeded to plod through Give it Away before starting a snorefest of a jam that was completely devoid of imagination, virtuosity or humor- those key ingredients that they normally do so brilliantly. After 15 minutes of complete monotony they simply downed tools and disappeared, up came the lights and 12,000 surprised faces looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and wandered out into the night.
Rumour has it the Chili's are retiring from touring soon, and if thats how they farewelled our shores its a great shame. For a ticket price that was $30 bucks more than the outstanding benchmark U2 show, and even $20 bucks more that the drooling epic lollyshop that is the Big Day Out, I think they could have done better. Perhaps a crowd pleaser like Under The Bridge, Higher Ground, Californication, Scar Tissue or Breaking the Girl might have been a better finish than a poor impersonation of a latter day Pink Floyd sleep inducer. Its not like they don't have an expansive back catalogue to delve into!
Anyway, to finish on a bright note, it was still a brilliant gig for the majority of the set, and between weddings, holidays, Routeburn races and a few other top secret plans I have to say Life Rocks- so party hard folks!
For those trainspotters out there the songlist was:
Cant Stop, Dani California, Other Side, Charlie, If, 21st Century, My Will For You, Hey Oh/ Snow, Get on Top, Shes Only 18, Catholic Schoolgirls Rule, Hump de Bump, Don't Forget Me, Tell Me Baby, By the Way, I Could've Lied, Give It Away
By the way (haha) this is how close my seat was to the stage, you could see the whites of their eyes!
1 comment:
Rats go
Saturday Night
Someone should have grabbed Anthony Kiedis, taken him up the top of Queen Street, injected him full of smack and sat him down to watch a 60 year old birthday boy to rock the world.
Kiedis on the strength of Saturdays performance wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes with the godfather of punk. Well, would anyone ?
But after watching the show, I couldnt care, just seeing the virtuoso performance of Flea and especially John Frusciante informed me that we are indeed blessed to be in front of two great musicians.
I have now had the pleasure of seeing THE three most influencial bass players of all time, the other two being Mike Watt and Peter Hook, but what amazed me is that playing the trumpet in a psychedelic jazz classical fusion can be both uplifting and mezmerising.
But everybody knows how good Flea is, but tonight it was the John Frusciante show, and boy did he play.
If no-one knows the story of Frusciante, its about a guy who joined the Chili Peppers after the death of Hillel Slovak and proceeded to catch up and overtake everyone with their nasty heroin addiction. Leaving the band in 1991 ( and was replaced after a while by the horrible Dave Navarro) he return penniless, toothless and guitarless pre Californication, and was the person to turn them around after the soulless "One Hot Minute", and his influences and melodies during Stadium Arcadium has probably turned him into the most important Chili Pepper.
Having to withstand the extremely funny Har Mar Superstar with Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes) & Tony Bevilacqua (The Distillers) providing the drum and bass, the Chilis came on to the usual Flea/Frusciente/Smith jam kicking off with Cant Stop.
An energetic performance highlighted with old numbers and the more upbeat Stadium Arcadium numbers (Snow (hey/ho), my fav).
A finally of Higher Ground then onto a 15 minute Clash reggae dub meeting Hendrix jam session which was euphoric, and just f**king excellent.
If you came to see the hits, then buy the DVD , get stoned and turn up the surround sound.
If you came to see the Chilis then it was my concert of the year.
Setlist
Cant Stop, Scar Tissue, Throw Away Your Television, Dani California, No-body Wierd like me, Snow, Charlie, She's only 18, Torture Me, Strip My Mind, Readymade, Suck My Kiss (London Calling), Songbird (John Frusciente), Pea, Californication, Hump de Hump , Sir Psycho Sexy, By The Way Fleas Trumpet, A rocking Higher Ground and the jam to end it.
Will someone please get Keidis to be a heroin addict again ?
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