Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scottrade Center

Bear with me, this may be long...

I have seen them twice before and enjoyed both shows. Going to the show with someone who had never seen them before is kind of like inviting someone to your house so you can show them one of your favorite movies. You’re kind of half watching the show and then half worrying about if the other person is enjoying it.

On a lark back in 2003, I entered a radio contest and won a meet and greet with Anthony Kiedis before their St. Louis show. My friend M babysat that night so I could attend the show and when I came home he asked me how it was meeting Anthony. My response was, “He has beautiful olive skin”. The next day at work M laughingly repeated this quote a number of times. Sometimes it takes someone quoting you back to yourself to realize what an ass you sound like.

High up in the arena Monday night, some fans held up a sign that said, “Show us your socks!” Wow, it was hard to believe that this was the same band that used to perform in tube socks. It was a way more mature set and this time around, all band members had more clothes on than I have ever seen them wear during a performance.

Thinking back about the setlist, all of the songs performed were songs from albums that John Frusciante played on. I wonder if that was intentional.

I have been semi-obsessed with John Frusciante since he cleaned up. He is a fascinating individual who seems to live and breathe music and I think his guitar playing is amazing. I mean the man put out something like seven solo albums in a year. I was reading an article that described his daily routine which consisted mostly of listening to records of whatever band he was fascinated by and learning all of the guitar parts for all of their songs. I think he must be going through a disco or a brothers Gibb phase because at the beginning of this tour, for his little solo song during the set he was doing the Bee Gees “How Deep is Your Love”. As K mentioned, this time he did Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing”, which sounded awesome (I have a place in my heart for the Brothers Gibb). In our cluster of fans I think K and I were the only ones singing along to that cover.

Tuesday I went online to look for the setlist and found it posted on a French fan site. Isn’t that funny that a setlist for a show in St. Louis, Missouri would be posted there? Here it is:

Intro Jam

Can't Stop

Dani California

Otherside

Charlie

Fortune Faded
ReadyMade

Get On Top

Nobody Weird Like Me

Don’t Forget Me

Shadow Dancing (John Solo)

Snow (Hey Oh)
....

C'mon Girl

Californication

London Calling Intro / Right On Time

Hey

By The Way

Encore:

I Could Have Lied

Give It Away

Final Jam

The encore was puzzling. “Give it Away” was the highlight, but “I Could Have Lied”? Come on, that is not an encore kind of a song. It’s more of a we just played five fast songs in a row and we’re gonna throw this in to give everyone a moment to breathe kind of a song. To end with an instrumental jam as Anthony walked off the stage makes one wonder if there are problems in the band or if he was not feeling well.

Especially after reading Kiedis’ autobiography, when I listen to their music, I sometimes think how awesome of a band they would be without him. We got a taste of that from the instrumental jams performed in between songs as well as at the beginning and end of the show. Because of this “what if” thought of mine, I enjoyed the jamming where usually that kind of thing totally gets on my nerves.

Songs I would have loved to have heard that they didn’t play were:

Wet Sand
Around the World
Parallel Universe
Breaking the Girl (my brother S hates this song)
Dosed
Minor Thing

The Chili Peppers never talk much in between songs and Monday was no exception. Towards the end of the show, Flea thanked the fans for their support over the years and said that we had their “love and gratitude”. Is this a farewell tour? It kind of felt that way.

--J

Red Hot Chili Peppers Fail to Give Much Away at Scottrade Center

The first time I heard of or saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers I was 14 and reading the latest issue of Bravo, a German teeny bopper magazine. Inside there was a small picture of some naked idiots onstage during their German tour wearing socks on their cocks. That was around 1988. 3 years later in 1991, my schoolmates and I were in our Europa Hotel room in The Hague and through a cloud of smoke we watched as "Give It Away" debuted on MTV Europe. I remember that one of my girlfriends instantly fell in love with Anthony Kiedis and would later claim from looking at the band's 1992 Rolling Stone cover that she could tell, based on the look of his torso, that he was "really tall". Right.

Despite never having been my favorite band, RHCP have been a constant peripheral presence in my life. In high school, you chose between Nirvana or Pearl Jam, but you always liked RHCP. If you didn't like them, you never admitted it. I did like them a lot, but for whatever reason I didn't love them. Perhaps that's why it has taken me over 15 years to finally see them live which I did at the Scottrade Center last Monday night. Like my feelings for the band, I liked the show a lot, but I didn't love it.

A seemingly apathetic Anthony wasn't on stage as much as I would have expected. Flea, a short-haired John Frusciante, and Chad Smith kept things going by peppering the set with instrumental jams that also opened and closed the show. I hate to say it, but Anthony came across as an aging rockstar trying to keep his signature energetic stage presence alive. Flea addressed the crowd a few times, but otherwise there wasn't much going on between the band and the audience- though I have to say the audience seemed to have a great time nonetheless.

Speaking of the audience, there was a lovely mix of 30-somethings, young kids, and periodic puffs of smoke. I guess I wasn't surprised that at some point instead of cell phones lighting the arena, a number of lighters provided the glow. I also wasn't really surprised that despite having wolfed down fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn before the show, towards the end I was fantasizing about the french fries stashed in my freezer waiting to be baked. Mmm-mmm, good!

The stage through a pinhole. This picture could not be smaller.

Along with my favorites such as Get On Top and Can't Stop, you heard a cover of The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog and Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing. I was surprised to not hear Under the Bridge, though I am as over that song as anyone could be. I would have loved to hear Soul to Squeeze and Scar Tissue. Give It Away was unmistakably the crowd favorite.

Although J and I had tons of fun hanging out Monday night, I have to give the show itself an Unmoving. While it was awesome to finally see the boys in person, the show wasn't as amazing as it could have been. -K

Gnarls Barkley at the Scottrade Center

Seeing Gnarls Barkley on the bill with the Red Hot Chili Peppers for their St. Louis date was just the nudge I needed to buy a ticket. While I wouldn’t classify St. Elsewhere as a solid favorite of mine, I like several of the songs and was very curious to see how they would translate live. K had mentioned before the show that Gnarls Barkley always wear a costume that corresponds with a cover from their set. The band, complete with a string section and backup singers, came on stage in flight suits and Cee-Lo made Space Oddity his own. Cee-Lo’s voice live is no less rich or full as it is on the record. I would say that it was even enhanced by the outstanding backup singers. Everyone in the band seemed to be totally into the performance, feeling the music in different ways like the guitarist’s aerial splits and the string section’s dance routines. Before launching into St. Elsewhere, Cee-Lo mentioned to the audience that he was from Atlanta, Georgia. He then said, “It’s not where you’re from but where you are”. Amen. Last night, in a city again plagued by power outages and 10 degree temperatures, I was unbelievably glad to be where I was. –J

Gnarls Barkley's Setlist

Space Oddity
Go-Go Gadget Gospel
Who Cares?
The Boogie Monster
Just a Thought
St. Elsewhere
Gone Daddy Gone
Feng Shui
Crazy
Smiley Faces