Red Hot Chili Peppers left this former fan cold

Alt-rock titans put on clunky, underwhelming show to sold-out crowd that spanned generations

- RICHIE ASSALY

The Red Hot Chili Peppers sounded good enough at Budweiser Stage on Monday — particularly John Frusciante, who remains one of the greatest living guitar players, and whose scorching solos provided the sole source of catharsis throughout the evening, writes Richie Assaly.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

✩✩1/2 (out of four)

Budweiser Stage on Saturday,

July 15, 2024

What can you say about the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the year 2024?

Formed way back in 1982, the Los Angeles band first made waves with their eccentric blend of funk, punk and hip hop, and their outrageous live performances. Miraculously, the quartet managed to survive the tumult of its early years, climbing through a haze of drugs and scandal to become one of the biggest and most commercially successful rock outfits of the 90s and early 2000s.

And yet for the past two decades, the Chilis have existed in a sort of ahistorical vortex, magically shielded from evolving tastes and changing mores.

The band continues to make new music — in 2022, they released two studio albums that were quickly memory-holed — but the charm seems to have faded away. They can still jam, their fans will assure you — they can still rock. But even the most loyal RHCP devotee will concede that their new music is merely comfort food with a little bit of spice, like a burger place that offers pickled jalapenos.

On Monday, following a weekend marked by an assassination attempt on a former U.S. president and horrific political violence overseas, I was eager to escape into an alt-rock vortex, and to bask in the nostalgia of my youth.