Red Hot Chili Peppers, Post Malone perform at Accor Stadium
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were never going to please everyone when they pleased themselves with a Sydney setlist featuring songs not everyone expected.
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The Red Hot Chili Peppers were never going to please everyone when they pleased themselves with a Sydney setlist featuring seven new songs.
While their opening Accor Stadium concert setlist pulled together songs stretching from 1989 to 2022, fans were divided about the band devoting a third of the show to tracks from last year’s Unlimited Love and Return Of The Dream Canteen albums.
The Chili Peppers are renowned for cycling new works into their tours, yet some concertgoers complained on social media about a third of the set featuring more recent tracks.
But as the band turns 40 this year, they staunchly refuse to become a jukebox band on this current Global Stadium tour.
They also appeared to offer confirmation the secret to eternal youth may lie in a life devoted to rock‘n’roll with their first Sydney stadium show on Thursday.
The dynamic antics of 60-year-olds Anthony Kiedis and Flea – and their older bandmate Chad Smith and younger guitarist John Frusciante – encouraged more than 60,000 people at Accor Stadium to party like it was the ’90s again.
“What’s up kids?” bare-chested bassist Flea asked their adoring fans after the band had delivered a blistering “Can’t Stop”.
Frontman Kiedis, kitted in a black mesh top for the first few songs before going topless, sounded as fit as he looked.
And powerhouse drummer Smith is relentless and commanding at his kit.
The gig had that feeling this was indeed a renaissance for a band who exploded to global domination with the release of their 1991 record Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
The Chili Peppers were indisputably red hot as they jammed, defiantly defying the scripted conventions of the modern concert as they did their own thing.
The return of Frusciante after he quit the band in 2009, a supremely innovative musician hailed as one of the greatest guitarists of his generation, has clearly reinvigorated the band.
They released two new albums in six months last year and both were given their due in the era-spanning setlist.
While their diehard fans may have preferred the old stuff to the new stuff, instead of leading the charge for the bar when they played “Eddie”, their sonic tribute to the late legendary founder of Van Halen, there was a loud chorus of cheers and applause.
The frustrations experienced by many fans who had been stuck in long traffic jams or on delayed train services fell away.
But let’s face it. While the new songs fit comfortably within their extensive catalogue, it was the classics which drew the most engagement, throwbacks like “Nobody Weird Like Me” and “Throw Away Your Television”, “Californication” and then “By The Way” and “Give It Away” to bring it home.
The Chili Peppers’ full court assault was in stark contrast to the solo yet no less stadium-worthy opening performance by Post Malone, an artist who commands the pop zeitgeist.
He sounded brilliant as he ran through a hits-only set, complete with fireworks and pyro, a luxury for an opening act in twilight.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Post Malone perform at Accor Stadium on Saturday.
For all dates, livenation.com.au
The Red Hot Chili Peppers setlist, Accor Stadium, February 2
Intro Jam
Can’t Stop
The Zephyr Song
Here Ever After
Snow (hey oh)
Eddie
Throw Away Your Television
Reach Out
Soul To Squeeze
Nobody Weird Like Me
These Are The Ways
The Heavy Wing
Tippa My Tongue
Californication
Pea
The Drummer
Black Summer
By The Way
Encore
Sir Psycho Sexy
They’re Red Hot (Robert Johnson cover)
Give It Away
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