PHILADELPHIA — Bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers are endangered species.
The spontaneous jam-rock aesthetic to which Flea, Anthony Kiedis and Chad Smith owe their entire, colossally successful careers is fading away — at least on the arena stages the Los Angeles funk-punkers still occupy.
More calculated, digitally focused “alternative” acts — the Twenty One Pilots and 1975s of the world — have swiped the “cool radio crossover band” card and cashed in on mega tours of their own, while the groups who naturally rip P-Funk bass lines and romp recklessly like The Stooges rarely advance beyond college radio.
That’s not to say left-of-center’s new headliners aren’t talented, it’s just the swing of the pendulum in 2017: in-studio computer polish is winning more fans than simple microphones placed over a drum kit. And these preferences are cyclical — fuzzy grunge scuffed out glam-metal’s sheen. In five years, we may be writing how organic recording is again de rigueur.
And when that day comes, the Counts of Californication will be there to scream they told us so.
The Chili Peppers’ Monday performance in Philadelphia, near the middle of a gargantuan, 140-date world tour that also visits New York Wednesday and Friday, explored cohesion amid chaos. Members were clearly playing for each other above all else, finding the sweetest groove within Flea’s frenetic bass slaps and Josh Klinghoffer’s squealing guitar scrapes, and holding there for as long as they needed before warping someplace else. Smith’s drumming, a cool blend of heavy metal pounding and underground jazz taps, played the guide, and frontman Kiedis did his vocal duty, bouncing around in track pants and baseball cap, doing little else good or bad.
The band made few comments to the Wells Fargo Center crowd during this night’s nearly two-hour set, other than Flea, 54 like Kiedis, mentioning the day’s date marked 34 years since the group’s first-ever jam session. The four-piece (with two back-up keys and percussion players appearing occasionally) were gracious, but otherwise totally unfazed by the packed audience of 15,000 — the best-selling alt-rock group since Desert Storm would have played the same show in a dank L.A. basement and been just as satisfied.
Though the dynamic in 2017 isn’t quite what it once was; the wildly talented, RHCP classic-lineup shredder John Frusciante left in 2009 and once-touring guitarist Klinghoffer has been the official replacement ever since. It was interesting to watch the newest member stumble around the stage and find his place, as a rhythmically perfect foil to Flea’s mania, always holding a solid strum.
Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers live at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 2017. (Mark Brown | For NJ.com)
But Klinghoffer went off-course a few times in his singularity: the well-known solos to “Dani California” and “Californication” seemed buzzed-up and altered just for sake of the new guitarist’s stamp, even if they took fans out of the song. And on “Dani” and a few others, the band missed the volume of two live guitarists.
The set was top heavy with hits, warming the crowd with the pounce of “Can’t Stop” and bounding singalong “Scar Tissue.” Then came some newbies off 2016’s “The Getaway,” a decent LP and the first Peppers album not produced by Rick Rubin in more than 25 years.
The “Getaway” lead single “Dark Necessities” possesses the group’s hottest hook in a decade and the crowd happily chimed in. The rest was basic filler, surrounding incendiary covers of Funkadelic’s “What is Soul,” Robert Johnson’s 90-year-old “They’re Red Hot” and the time-tested slayer “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder, which some young fans must assume by now is just a Chili Peppers original.
One-thousand floating, candle-like LED cylinders descended over the crowd in terrific colors throughout the show, creating waves and shapes before a large screen playing images of psychedelia. The color draped down to some the band’s getups: Smith’s purple jumpsuit suggested Lakers t-shirt-shooter guy, and Flea looked like a 7th grader’s quilting project gone horribly wrong.
Red Hot Chili Peppers live at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 2017. (Mark Brown | For NJ.com)
But the only aesthetic that really mattered Monday was that of a real, gelling hard-rock band, playing the bananas out of its instruments — the band’s budget for new guitar strings and unbeaten drum heads must be immense. And it was an important reminder to fans: studio-forged music is okay in headphones, but in flesh and blood, the Pepper’s tenacious brand of agro-funk still rules the alternative roost.
Trombone Shorty opens
Is there a more masterful opening act than Trombone Shorty, the horn-tastic Jazz adventure band from New Orleans? Shorty himself is a frontman virtuoso on the trombone and trumpet but his five-piece backing group was equally tremendous Monday, with one mind-bending solo after another, from soprano and tenor sax and guitar. The crowd ate up the originals mashed with jazzed up rock hits — Green Day’s “Brain Stew,” Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” — and cheered the band with a standing ovation as they finished.
THE SET LIST
- Intro Jam
- “Can’t Stop”
- “Dani California”
- “Scar Tissue”
- “Dark Necessities”
- “Hey”
- “Factory of Faith” (Preceded by a snippet of “Out in L.A.”)
- “Go Robot”
- Chad & Josh Jam
- “Californication”
- “What Is Soul?” (Funkadelic cover)
- “Sick Love”
- “Sir Psycho Sexy”
- “They’re Red Hot” (Robert Johnson cover)
- “Detroit”
- “Higher Ground” (Stevie Wonder cover)
- “Soul to Squeeze”
- “By the Way”
- Encore:
- “Goodbye Angels”
- “Give It Away”
Standing in line to see the show tonight And there’s a light on, heavy glow By the way I tried to say I’d be there waiting for | #rhcp [?] #thegetawaytour #forjamiNxavi
Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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