Red Hot Chili Peppers Give It Away Saturday Night at Bonnaroo

During a short breather in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ set on Saturday, bassman Flea took a minute to say how much he enjoyed the signs he could see from the stage. “Especially the one that says ‘I Eat Ass,’ ” he said. “That’s beautiful, man,” concurred frontman Anthony Kiedis.

Flea’s next bit of banter was a little more serious: “We played a million fuckin’ festivals, and this is my favorite one.”

That pretty much sums up the Peps’ second turn as Bonnaroo headliners (a follow-up to their 2012 appearance), which shared a few important things with U2’s set on Friday night. Both are venerable bands who played iconic songs with top-tier musicianship; both have aged pretty damned gracefully, with members looking healthy and embracing self-effacing humor; and both broadcast messages about taking an active role in making the world a better place, as well as a joy in performing that was so contagious you’d have to deliberately resist not getting swept up by it.

Setting aside their vastly different styles, there was one relevant difference: While Friday night’s gig marked U2’s first U.S. festival show in decades, the Chili Peppers are dyed-in-the-wool festies, which gave them a home-field advantage that they used to the fullest extent. They romped and stomped through a 90-minute set with energy to spare — Flea, his crazy-quilt circus pants a-flappin’, returned to the stage for the two-song encore walking on his hands.

The set itself felt tailored to the crowd we saw around us, made up of folks who (like us) were just developing their own musical tastes during the late ’90s and early Aughts when the band was reinventing itself for the fourth time. Cuts from Californication and By the Way were seasoned with a sprinkling of newer tunes like the ubiquitous “Snow (Hey Oh)” and “Dani California” from 2006’s Stadium Arcadium, plus a handful from 2011’s I’m With You and 2016’s The Getaway. 

A couple of covers nodded to the band’s funk-punk foundation — there was a gnarly “What Is Soul?” with a shout-out to Johnny Cash and June Carter, as well as a take on The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" — but a couple from 1991’s watershed Blood Sugar Sex Magik were as far back as they went. That makes sense considering that “Under the Bridge” already felt like a revered classic by the time we were teens. That particular warhorse didn’t get played on Saturday, but the period single “Soul to Squeeze” did appear just before the end of the main set.

We have plenty of friends and colleagues who could go the rest of their lives without hearing another Chili Peppers tune, and we’ll concede them some points. The Peps’ lyrics, while often heartfelt and earnest, sometimes veer toward the absurd in ways that come off like they just made up something to fit the rhythm and never replaced it (lookin' at you, “Scar Tissue”), and the rap-inspired sorta-scatting delivery that Anthony Kiedis uses from time to time is going to turn some people right off, no two ways about it. 

But to watch a band play at their level of proficiency and enthusiasm is a special treat. After nearly three decades of working together, Flea and drummer Chad Smith can follow each other without thinking — even when the tempo of “Californication” got a little wiggy, everyone compensated without a hitch. Josh Klinghoffer, the relative newcomer to the band (close to 20 years younger than the other core members, he joined as a touring guitarist in 2007 and officially took over for John Frusciante in 2009), unleashed his full range of distinctive post-Prince-ian skills, calling up wild solos, tight riffing and atmospheric effects as needed. 

The short instrumental jams between songs ranged from harmonically rich to scorchingly aggressive — if they ever decide to record some of those and release them, à la the Beastie Boys’ The In Sound From Way Out!, count us in. And Kiedis — muscle-bound and mustachioed like Sterling Archer’s version of David Foster Wallace, modulated gracefully from his tenderest croon to his most authoritative bark, even though the material occasionally called for the cringey pseudo-rap.

After the band wrapped their encore with the now-vintage hit “Give It Away,” Smith took the mic to offer his gratitude to the crowd. “Bonnaroo, we are lucky to have you. Until we meet again, my friends.” We couldn’t agree more.

See our slideshow for more photos. And check out our full recap for more from Bonnaroo Day Three right here.

In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.