By Emilia Hwang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been galvanizing audiences with
their white-boy-hard-rock long before the likes of Korn or Kid
Rock.
Over a decade before Eminem yielded the “Real Slim
Shady,” Chili Pepper’s front man Anthony Kiedis was
busting out rhymes that took lyrics to a higher ground. Not to
mention the band members have been rocking out in sync long before
the craze of choreographed boy bands.
On tour in support of its latest album
“Californication,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers played two
nights at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine. The quartet
proved their staying power on Sept. 1, showing that they can still
rock out audiences in addition to putting out a four times platinum
album.
The boys did not waste any time. Kiedis took the stage with his
mad mohawk and the Chili Peppers opened with “Around The
World,” stomping around on stage and firing up the
audience.
The crowd immediately fell under the wiles of the charismatic
Kiedis. As he switched from hard hitting songs like “Suck My
Kiss” to more toned down tunes like “Otherside,”
the band members followed his lead and switched from jumping and
flailing to dancing and swaying.
Setting a mellow mood for “Scar Tissue,” the Chili
Peppers brought the house down, but still maintained a constant
vibrancy. They sustained a high level of energy, with Chad Smith
pounding on drums and Flea gyrating his body like Gumby while
churning out unrelenting bass lines.
California highway scenes flashed on the video monitor as the
crowd sang along to the band’s highly anticipated performance
of “Californication.” Fans hung on to every note of
guitarist John Frusciante’s recklessly sweet solos.
Frusciante replaced Dave Navarro on the Pepper’s latest album
after an eight year hiatus following the band’s 1991 release
“Blood Sugar Sex Magik.”
The only low point of the concert was the tendency of the
band’s sound to get lost in distortion. If you don’t
know what Kiedis is saying on the band’s studio recordings,
you’ll find him even less coherent in concert.
That seems, however, to be part of the Chili Pepper’s
magic. With a peerless rhythm and poetry, the band delivered a
mystical rendition of “Under The Bridge.”
Fans singing in unison, (apparently able to decipher the lyrics
on this particular song,) drowned out the voice of Kiedis. The
result was a heavenly chorus appropriately emanating from the
collective voices of the City of Angels.
The concert was a carnival for the senses, furnishing
titillating tunes as well as a wall of intriguing visual images.
Video screens revealing everything from pulsing cityscapes and
romantic sunsets to psychedelic cartoons and geometric patterns
heightened the resonance of the spirited performance.
Knowing that a band like the Chili Peppers have been firing off
albums since the early ’80s, you can bet that its staying
power will keep them driving through many more tireless concert
routines, outlasting the latest trend-setting nomads.