Last night, I had the fortune of seeing Gnarls Barkley and The Red Hot Chili Peppers live, at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville. First, a word about the arena: John Paul is a new state-of-the-art arena, built by UVA for the basketball program, but also for concerts and events. It was immaculate and well-designed; very impressive. It's nice to finally have something closer; we generally end up going to DC or MD for concerts. At some point, I'm going to have to come up with that list: Concerts I've Seen. I'm lucky in that I have brothers who are music-philes, and we always went to as many varied concerts as we could. I hadn't been to any lately, but this was a great one to return on.
Gnarls Barkley opened the show, and they were fantastic. I love St. Elsewhere; it's got a great mix of funkiness and popiness, and even some rock. They played some of my favorites from that album: The Boogie Monster, Just A Thought, Gone Daddy Gone, and of course, Crazy. Cee-Lo, the singer, described Crazy as "an instant classic." I'd have to agree, and it was great live.
I've been a RHCP fan since around 1991-92, when we all fell in love with Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I've seen them twice before, and each time, they are tight, and their music comes out as it should: energetic, exciting, and lyrically, very West Coast. Last night's show was no exception. They focused on a lot of their more recent albums, playing greats like By The Way, The Other Side, Californication, Parallel Universe, and from Stadium Arcadium, the new single Snow (Hey Oh) and Dani California. Surprises were the older classics Sir Psycho Sexy and Me & My Friends. Of course, we got Under the Bridge and Give it Away as encores.
The 2 hour show from The Chili Peppers went by amazingly fast; I was genuinely shocked when it was time for encores. Musically, I was most impressed by the rhythm section: Flea and Chad Smith were completely in-synch (a testament to how good Chad really is, since Flea is a flurry of bass riffs, all of the time), and hearing them jam was awesome. I'm a fan of drummers in general, but I'd have to say, Chad is one of the best around.
If you haven't heard much of The Chilis, I recommend:
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Mother's Milk
Stadium Arcadium
For starters.
Have a great day!
2 comments:
I'm just so utterly utterly and insanely jealous Marty! Two of my fave bands and you saw 'em both! Eee!
So did the Barkleys do their military uniform stuff? Amazing to think that they just cropped up from being on an internet site and being discovered that way. Deservedly so. C-lo's voice is awesome and if I sounded like that when I sing, I'd sing all the time.
The peps though - last time I saw them Live was in 2000, at the Reading Festival and they just blew pretty much every other act of the weekend right off the stage - just utterly awesome.
Peej
x
Hey Peej!
They were both just fab; The Chilis always are. I was stoked to see Gnarls since their album is sooo great, and they did not disappoint.
:)
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