The Internet went up in arms after the Super Bowl, when it was pointed out that the Red Hot Chili Peppers didn’t have their instruments plugged in. Now Flea has admitted to miming his performance, and SPOILER ALERT, it wasn’t such a big deal.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of those bands that have already peaked but has steadily been putting out good music. After dominating the 90s, the group stayed relevant with a steady string of hits in the 2000s.
However, after years of hits, some fans have turned on the band after one performance.
The group was accused of not playing live during the Super Bowl halftime show. Now the group has come clean about why they didn’t play live, and why you really shouldn’t care.
On their website, Flea addressed the issue, stating:
“When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song Give It Away at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL's stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.”
Flea went on to add that the band heavily weighed the decision :
“We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell. Plus, we the RHCP all love football too and that played a big part in our decision. We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig."
The band made no effort to cover up their "crime,” which Flea added could have easily been done:
“Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrumental track was pre recorded? Of course easily we could have and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance.”
However, it is a really big deal. Surely, if you spent a large sum of money to see the band play a live concert and they really only pretended the whole night, than you might have a legit gripe.
But no one went to the Super Bowl for the five minutes of Red Hot Chili Peppers. If you had, then it would have been a giant waste of money, whether they played live or not.
Big event performances are not concerts. They should not be treated as such. Besides, regardless of how they played, were you not singing “Give it away, give it away, give it away now” in the back of your head while watching?
Now lay off the Chili Peppers, If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the Denver Broncos for pretending to be a football team.
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