Hi everyone,

I really have zero time for setlist complainers. We’re lucky enough that the Chili Peppers are not only still together, but that they tour fairly regularly. However – and I’m guessing this is some kind of by-product of the ultra-interconnected world we live in – for some reason, a large portion of fans feel the need to sit at home while a concert is happening on the other side of the planet, and feel slighted about the fact the Chili Peppers are playing “Under The Bridge” for the umpteenth time, and not some obscure track that 90% of the concert attendees will have never heard of.

A lot of people don’t seem to understand that a concert is happening for the people there, that night. It’s happening for the people who have paid $120 for a shitty seat in a hockey stadium. These concerts are not for the small subset of fans at home with tweet-notifications on, who aren’t actually experiencing the performance, but are merely tracking a set of figures. (Mark says it best here.)

The investment banker who kinda liked By the Way back in 2002 and vaguely recognizes half the set isn’t going to be happy when a bunch of rarities come on. That isn’t how concerts work; that’s what clears seats and leaves bad tastes in the mouth of casual fans with expendable income, the people that the RHCP depend on.

And, to be perfectly fair, the RHCP are actually a lot better than most bands; they mix up their sets constantly, and if they play two (or three) shows in the same place, they’ll swap out a large portion of the set from night to night. On the other hand example, this five run set of Muse shows are all exactly the same; talk about boring (and I don’t just mean Muse’s music!)

I went to the two shows I’ve linked above, one night after the other, and sure – I knew what was going to come from song to song – but that didn’t mean I was upset when “Give It Away” or “Californication” popped up. It was like being pissed off that a movie I love was the same the hundredth time I watched it. Doesn’t mean I didn’t still enjoy myself.

That said, there are bands that mix their shows up far more than the Chili Peppers do. Acts like Pearl Jam seem to play a larger variety of songs, and set out their shows seemingly completely at random. This rewards fans who travel from show to show and record them, a bit like Grateful Dead shows of old, and also means that if you ARE watching from home, you’re surprised with what’s being performed.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if the RHCP had say, a 20% smaller fanbase, and didn’t have so many huge radio hits to fall back on. They could play shows where they didn’t feel the need to please so many casual fans (or maybe they’d play shows that were exactly the same!) and could even do fun little album-specific shows, kinda like this one that Nine Inch Nails did back in 2009; surprise - here’s The Downward Spiral from start to finish, and then a complete show on top of that. There was a lot of talk back on September 24, 2011, the 20th anniversary of “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”, that the band were gonna play the album from top to bottom, but they’re not the kind to do that, are they?

This train of thought lead me to the idea of doing what I’ve called a “randomised” show. An experiment of sorts where – let’s say I’m Anthony – about an hour before the concert, I hit shuffle on a RHCP playlist, and the band played exactly what comes out, with no further thought. This process gives zero concern to hit singles, or pleasing certain fans, or how a concert is supposed to “flow” - it’s just 16 random tracks, like you’ve hit shuffle on their Spotify profile.

I should make it as clear as possible: I have zero problem with RHCP shows now. We’re lucky to still have them playing at all. This is just a what-if.

What I did was download five or so of the 2016-2017 soundboard recordings from Live Chili Peppers, which gave me a collection of about 35 different unique songs. Then I shuffled the songs on a randomizer ten times, and picked one of those lists randomly. I only picked the first 16 songs, because that’s about the length of a RHCP show nowadays; 90 minutes.

Then I made the concert, adding some random in-between jams from the nights the songs were sourced from, and sequenced it all to the best of my ability in a free DAW.

How does it sound? You can hear it for yourself here. This was a pretty rushed job, and there are a bunch of dodgy edit points, especially when the crowd is considered, but I think it’s a pretty fun listen - and hey, the whole thing is fake, so just pretend like it’s been edited better, will ya?

Here’s the setlist:

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

Samhailteach Arena,

September 31 2019.

Stream

If You Have To Ask

Did I Let You Know

Parallel Universe

Snow

Scar Tissue

Tell Me Baby

Otherside

Breaking the Girl

Dark Necessities

Me and My Friends

Under the Bridge

Higher Ground

Aeroplane

Goodbye Angels

The Longest Wave

The Power of Equality

What do you think? If the band were to come out in Abu Dhabi later week and play this set, I figure a lot of people will be happy: the hardcore not-even-there fans will be happy (deep cuts!), the casual fans will be happy (10 singles!), and we’ll be left with the strangest show-opener since they opened with “Under the Bridge” back in 1998.

As an aside - these are some great performances - the solo on “If You Have To Ask” is blistering, and it’s fun to listen to the band almost fall apart on “Parallel Universe” but reel it back in. Also, the little conversation Anthony and Flea have at about 25:45 is hilarious, and the rest of the band backing them up with the lite jazz music is genius.

(Note: I won’t tell you which shows I sourced these songs from, because… I can’t remember. One of them was Zurich.)

The RHCP will never open a show with “If You Have To Ask” following into “Did I Let You Know” - but this is what it would sound like if they did; music is wonderful in the way that the context it’s presented in is everything. This little experiment is just another example of this.

And, closing with “The Power of Equality”? Genius… they’ve certainly done that before. I don’t think “The Longest Wave” is gonna inspire too many people second last, but that’s the risk you take going by this method. The show the next day would be completely different, of course.

This was a fun experiment, and if I woke up tomorrow having somehow taken over Anthony’s brain, I’d probably keep doing it. Of course, I’d also spend most of my time preparing a B-sides boxset…but one task at a time.

See you next month.