* Red Hot Chili Peppers: In Concert *
Kicking off today’s blog post: Red Hot Chili Peppers – April 17th and 19th.
Acer Arena, Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, NSW, Australia, Planet Earth, Milky Way.
This is the first time I’ve been to the same concert for two different performances. The first, Tuesday 17th of April was courtesy of a free ticket I was offered by a very nice company who I have worked for in the past. The Private Suite was an added touch 🙂
The performance featured a very decent set list (with some glaring omissions) however the vocals were poorly mixed and hard to hear. The sound was a little over-the-top loud, I half expected bleeding ear drums.
One of my biggest complaints was the random and long instrumental segments which were a little too often [when the band plays for less than two hours] and when the instrumentals contribute to more than 30 minutes of the overall length of the concert. In other words, about 20% to 25% of the concert was an instrumental of some kind.
The same instrumental formula was taken into Thursday’s performance (which we had "regular seats" for) and which featured a weaker set list (missing some signature tracks) with the glaring omission (the Australian tour leg as far as I know) of such a classic hit as "Under the Bridge". Songs which weren’t played either night in Sydney (that I attended) included "Californication", "Around the world", "Aeroplane", "My Friends", "Zephyr Song" and "Love Rollercoaster" to name but a few.
Thursday, in particular, was without "Give it away" and "Suck my kiss" but did include "Soul to Squeeze" and "Other Side".
Both nights the band played "Can’t Stop", "Dani, California" and "By The Way". There was a decent mix of old and new (despite the songs missing above) – though a very few songs from their breakthrough album ("Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik").
At least on Thursday’s concert the sound crew managed (mid concert) to get the vocals and mucis properly balanced. It would have been nice if they could have done the same on the Tuesday.
I guess it is fair to acknowledge that a band which has been around for more than 20 years will have a very large list of hits to select from, but it would have been nice (given the time which has passed since we last saw the group in oz) for them to play a more varied (meaning, more older) tracks. Perhaps the group was under the misapprehension that their mid-90s album "Red Hot Minute" had sold badly here – it did not.
Where was this set list? Photo courtesy of news.com.au
As for concerts at Homebush bay, they continue to disappoint (not entirely to do with the headline act) but for the other intangibles – poor sound mixing (recalling last years’ U2 concert), crowd control and pricey merchandise.
Public transport is still way, way too expensive (despite the repeated calls by promoters for people not to drive to Homebush). It cost me $4.90 for a one way train ticket from Central station to Olympic Park – pretty tough given the $119.90 spent on admission and the super expensive rip-off pricing of food and drinks.
In future, I’m going to stick to events at the Sydney Entertainment Centre – it’s far easier to get to and alternative eating and drinking options are closer by (and far, far more reasonably priced).
Go and see RHCP in the future? Probably won’t if the tickets are more than $90 – especially when the support act sucks.
