Posted on: Thursday, August 1, 2002

CONCERT REVIEW
Chili Peppers ignite crowd at Blaisdell

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

The Red Hot Chili Peppers managed to keep their clothes on and still put on a great show last night at their first Hawai'i concert in more than a decade.

The Peppers — vocalist Anthony Kiedis, bassist Flea, guitarist John Frusciante, drummer Chad Smith — bounded on stage at Blaisdell Arena with a roar and a whimper with their most recent hit "By The Way," a mix of old-school (amped-up) and new-school (smooth-grooved) Pepper funk-rock stylings that quickly set off the crowd.

The 90-minute concert had about as much fat on it as Kiedis' rock-hard abs, which is to say absolutely none. Doffing his shirt to display his impressive 40-year-old frame by the second song, "Scar Tissue," Kiedis led the Peppers through a tight 20-song set mostly filled with music from the band's more recent mature and mellower-sounding albums, "By The Way" and "Californication."

The Red Hots rarely reached deep into their younger freaky-styley basket of funk-rock, but still managed to pull out fully amped versions of melodic and harmonic newer tracks such as "Otherside" and "Universally Speaking."

Frusciante, who of late has proven himself the resident Brian Wilson-ish musical genius of the group, thanks to his intriguing instrumental and harmonic contributions to recent Peppers albums, offered the biggest surprises of the evening and won some of the wildest audience applause. After noodling with its introduction several times, Frusciante wrapped an impressive high vocal around the Chantels' ballad "Maybe" that was as sweet as it was surprising.

Kiedis' voice was, for the most part, in fine form as well. "By The Way" and "Don't Forget Me" found his newly soulful vox in almost ethereal form, while "Around The World" and "Can't Stop" showed off the real guy Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst should thank for his white-boy rap career.

Not surprisingly, the closest-audience-favorite Pepper next to Frusciante was the aptly named Flea, who along with Kiedis and Frusciante moved across the stage with a determination those far younger and far-too-early-to-be-sedentary twentysomethings of The Strokes could take a cue or two from.

Watching Smith beat the crap out of his drum set on "Throw Away Your Television" reminded me of long ago afternoons watching Animal do the same on "The Muppet Show."

The main set ended with a gorgeously wistful "Californication," followed by a blistering version of "Give It Away" that turned the seatless main floor of the Blaisdell into a teeming mass of bobbing heads and extended fists. On the latter, Flea even leaped onto Smith's drum kit to share some of his singular brand of bass slapping.

The band returned to the stage with Flea walking on his hands for its single encore, bringing out the audience's lighters with the classic "Under The Bridge" and a wonderfully intense "Me & My Friends."

With last night's concert the band's only scheduled U.S. date until a full-fledged tour next spring, lucky Honolulu fans got a terrifically loose, no-frills meal of Chili Peppers' al dente that was in a word: Magik. Thankfully low on special effects-heavy accouterments, the Peppers delivered a show that was more jam-heavy uplift-mofo house party than the Blaisdell normally gets from a band this big.