Red Hot Chili Peppers live in London: veteran funk-rockers keep it weird

What a strange band this is. At one point, Flea, dressed in a long-sleeved red shirt and a kilt that meets long blue socks, looking like a sexagenarian Super Mario, breaks from proceedings to pump out a slap-bass solo and recount the contents of his breakfast. “Three more poached eggs this morning for meee!” he sings. Without comment, the four-piece then tumble into their gleefully grubby 1991 classic ‘Suck My Kiss’.

The bassist had begun the show on handstands, pogoing across the stage in the manner of a man whose band have never taken the simple route. Given their status as one of the biggest acts in the world, it’s easy to overlook what unlikely stadium-fillers the Red Hot Chili Peppers really are. Anthony Kiedis’ nonsensical but phonetically perfect semi-rapped lyrics, returning guitar hero John Frusciante’s aversion to the limelight, those bloody slap-bass solos: none of it exactly screams 2022-2023 Global Stadium Tour, as the Chili fellas have unimaginatively billed this sprint around the Earth.

And yet here we are. In conversation with NME ahead of their first-ever headline US stadium tour last year, Kiedis explained: “They’re tricky places to fill up with the feeling we want to fill them up with, but we wanted to do something that we’ve not really done. So we’re gonna try to build a beautiful stage and make it feel right in this oversized environment.”

There’s little evidence of this ambition at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, truth be told. The sparse staging is augmented only by trippy visuals that might remind this ageing millennial audience of the Windows Media Player graphics that played alongside their illegal downloads of ‘Californication’ in the early ‘00s. Replete with Frusciante’s baggy, doodled-on trousers and a T-shirt adorned with a spray paint-style cartoon character, along with the cameras crash-zooming in on him like it’s an episode of ‘90s TV show The Word, this is no-frills dad-rock from a simpler time.

Upon opening with an interminable jam session, the band reward the audience’s patience by rolling from the joyful ‘Can’t Stop’ into the instantly recognisable ‘Scar Tissue’ (which Kiedis dedicates to beloved crooner Tony Bennett, whose death was announced earlier in the day). As well as the tunes that are etched in fans’ memories, though, there’s the small matter of two new Chilis albums to get through.

Having laid low for a decade, Frusciante re-entered the fold for ‘Unlimited Love’ and ‘Return of the Dream Canteen’, which were released in quick succession last year. By some strange twist of fate, the tracks from those albums coincide with swathes of the audience heading out to the bar. Of the new material, the sultry ‘Black Summer’, the first single released upon their return, sits most comfortably in the set. Pleasingly, Kiedis’ weird enunciation of its lyrics remains intact from the record: “China’s on the durrrk side of the mooooon.” Less compelling is the noodly, impenetrable ‘Aquatic Mouth Dance’, even if he says it “goes out to” London punk legends The Slits.

That’s one of several homages paid to the city, as when the Chilis precede breakneck funk workout ‘Right On Time’ with a chug through the opening bars of The Clash’s ‘London Calling’. Flea, meanwhile, makes a misty-eyed speech about their debut visit to these shores, back when RHCP were just four randy blokes with a dream and a demo. “Please just listen to it!” he remembers begging. “Give us a chance! We can play your nightclub! We can play your grandmother’s living room! Just listen to this shit!”

Besides that heartfelt moment and Frusciante’s solo cover of Cynthia & Johnny O’s 1990 dance-pop curio ‘Dreamboy/Dreamgirl’, the show feels like business as usual for the Chilis. Before the sun drops, with rows of empty seats on display, you get a sense of what it might be like to drag yourself around the interchangeable sports stadiums of the world, cranking out the hits and politely received newbies. Still, many of us thought we’d never hear Frusciante tease that planet-sized ‘Can’t Stop’ refrain in person again – and his presence is certainly keenly felt, whether he’s falling to his knees in a moment of high riffage or adding melodic glimmers to the end of ‘Don’t Forget Me’.

‘By The Way’ gets a glorious, cowbell-adorned make-over and precedes the inevitable encore of ‘Under the Bridge’ and ‘Give It Away’. The audience’s iPhone torches come out for the former and Kiedis rolls his syllables on the latter with the same gusto he’s summoned for the last 30-odd years; like tens of thousands of fans roaring the words “hardcore soft porn” along to ‘Californication’, it can’t fail to raise a smile.

Was tonight just another date on the relentless 2022-2023 Global Stadium Tour, another sports stadium to fill with sweet slap bass? Perhaps – since this is the Chilis we’re talking about, though, it was anything but ordinary.

Red Hot Chili Peppers played:

‘Intro Jam’
‘Can’t Stop’
‘Scar Tissue’ (Dedicated to Tony Bennett)
‘Snow ((Hey Oh))’
‘Aquatic Mouth Dance’
‘Suck My Kiss’
‘Reach Out’
‘Soul to Squeeze’
‘Right on Time’
‘Dreamboy/Dreamgirl’ (Cynthia & Johnny O cover) (John Solo)
‘Don’t Forget Me’
‘Tippa My Tongue’
‘Tell Me Baby’
‘The Heavy Wing’
‘Californication’
‘Black Summer’
‘By the Way’
‘Under the Bridge’
‘Give It Away’

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