What’s up fellow metal-heads! I’m Zachary Textor, lead vocals of Advocate Embrace, and now your rock related columnist. This past Saturday I had the honor of going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Amway Center, March 31, 2012.
It started with showing up and immediately trying to struggle my way through the crowds and buying a shirt for my father at an unreasonable price. After dying a little inside from actually sacrificing that much money, my brother and I went on to find some food, but we decided to wait after vomiting in our mouths at the fact that a large soda (50 cents more than a regular) cost $2 more than a pretzel that I could have made better with the paper towels inside the bathroom. But I guess that’s the price of living next to a tourist trap, right?
So we get to our seats, in awe at the site of the newly done arena that I just saw for the first time since the construction, and sit down to a feeling of falling due to the fact that the seats were so steep. Then finally comes time for some performances, first up was Santigold. It kind of sounded like M.I.A. and all of her songs probably could have used a bass drop of some sort. I think she achieved what she was going for in the sense of music, but whether or not I can say I enjoyed it will be up to me purposely listening to her….guess I won’t form an opinion. She actually almost got booed off stage, but she did one more song before what we came for showed up.
So it is like half an hour late, but Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith, and Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers appear with a great applause from the crowd. Almost immediately they start to play “Monarchy of Roses”. “Can’t stop” comes up after and then "Charlie" was the third song to play, while “Otherside” was being played as song four. “Look Around” was the fifth song to be played with a sick bass solo at the end leading into “Throw Away Your Television”. “Hard to Concentrate” was up as song seven. The band played around with the original version and just had fun with it. Number eight on the set was “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie”. Pretty successful with Flea adding some funky bass riffs (yes, I just said funky in a metal column. Whatch'ya gona do?) in the middle of it. “Happiness Loves Company” was the ninth song on the list. For number ten they performed “Me and My Friends”, by far on of the best songs to dance to.
After that came “Ethiopia” from their newest album, I’m With You. “Under the Bridge” was the twelfth song and just about everyone had their lighters and cellphones out, beautiful performance. Next up they played their version of “Higher Ground”, originally from Stevie Wonder #powerrangerswag. Sound Fourteen was “Californication”, probably one of the best they played that night. And the fifteenth song was “By the Way”, the light work on this song could have induced seizures to anyone prone to them. After that Anthony left the stage and Flea, Josh, and Chad made an ode to Trayvon Martin while Anthony did like a 5 minute handstand. I think the sixteenth song was “Party on Your Pussy” from the Uplift Mofo Party Plan, but I’m not completely sure. Number Seventeen was “Soul to Squeeze”, a perfect performance. And the last song was “Give it away” from Blood Sugar Sex Magik. After that Anthony said his goodbyes, but everyone else stayed for a instrumental that ended with Chad throwing his drum stick and hitting some woman in the face. Funny stuff.
After the show my brother and I ran to Pine Street and got into a club for free. Sick night with the illest dude I know. All in all I had a great time, I would quit my job to go see RHCP live again.
Hope you enjoyed. I’ll write again on Friday to keep you updated on things happening all around the metal world. Until next time, rock on.
- Zachary
