Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Cape Town Stadium

Tuesday 5 February 2013

I remember, ages ago, this email petition doing the rounds, ‘Get the Red Hot Chili Peppers to play in South Africa’…fast forward a few years and they actually did! And I really hope everyone who signed that petition got to see them, because the show was pretty damn amazing.

I suppose I score negative Capetonian points for this confession but last Tuesday was both my first time doing the Fanwalk from Adderley Street to the Stadium and my first time inside the actual stadium itself.

Having read some worrying stories from the Joburg concert I was a little apprehensive, but my last Big Concert experiences (Rammstein and John Cleese…not at the same time obviously, though that would be mind-blowing) were amazing and, from what I experienced, well organised.

The first security point was the pat-down and search – a small table in between the sea of people contained collected disallowed items – bottles of juice and water, piles of spray deodorant and the saddest confiscated pasta salad ever. Some people were given grief for their small cameras whereas others weren’t, which was annoying (especially since it says online in Big Concerts’ FAQ that non-professional cameras are allowed) but generally I found the check-in process pretty quick and pain-free.

Inside, we grabbed some beers and joined the rest of the general standers and waited eagerly. Everything ran really punctually, at exactly 7:45, Die Antwoord took to the stage. Love them or hate them, I’ve personally never been disappointed with a set of theirs, until this one. We really couldn’t see the stage at all from our position but had a good view of all the massive screens surrounding it. Unfortunately they were showing music video extracts, words and pre-filmed footage rather than a live feed. So when Flea came out to jam with them, we could hear his epic bass badassery but couldn’t see him at all. Same goes for their other surprise guest, a Beastie Boy, not sure which one or what he looked like…Die Antwoord are a very visual band, but apart from not seeing them, their performance just felt…off. The crowd weren’t feeling it and the band just sort of fizzled out and left when they were done. A pity.

9PM and the main event starts. It’s like the opening act never happened; the shift is immediate, this is what a worldclass show from a legendary band feels like. The visuals alone were amazing, perfectly filmed, beautifully graded and flawlessly edited – all live! Truly wonderful, and they just improved as the show went on.

It’s well-known but drummer Chad Smith really does look like Will Ferrell, scarily so. New(ish) guitarist Josh Klinghoffer was hypnotic. Anthony Keidis was a lot quieter than I’d expected, though Flea willingly embraced the role of spokesman for the band, and speak he did – he said some truly lovely things but a lot was muffled by the screams of the adoring crowd.

I missed Otherside, Especially in Michigan and a few others, but they played a nice mix of new material and classic hits, including Me & My Friends, which Flea introduced by saying ‘this song is pretty old…did we right it 10 years ago? No! 20 years? No! Close to 30 years…? Hell yes’. Highlights included the crowd’s vocals drowning out Keidis’ during Under The Bridge, Flea’s cross-stage handstand-walking, the crowd’s spontaneous ‘ole’ chanting during the call for an encore, when Chad came out to jam with us, Keidis’ surprisingly vulnerable expression during the last few seconds of By the Way, the epic CT fan photo/band close-up montage during Give It Away and Flea’s parting speech thanking us and urging us to support music and see local bands. Epic.