The legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers were in Tel Aviv last night, performing to a sellout crowd of 50,000 adoring fans – and they rocked it!
UPDATE: The boys are back in town in 2020!
I was also there, and have to say the Chili Peppers were pretty darned good! I’m hardly what I’d call a die-hard fan, but they definitely have many of the tunes that accompanied me through my formative years (the 90s) in the Holy Land (what, you haven’t read the story of how I ended up here yet?), and I was half-bopping away (not a full bop…) to some of the other tunes I was less familiar with…
And maybe it was their energy, and funky little jamming sessions between numbers, and the connection with Israel and references to original Israeli band member Hillel Slovak (who died in 1988), or perhaps even the whiskey/beer combo…but I enjoyed this gig a lot!
Best moment: dedication of Otherside to Haifa (Hillel was originally from there), the encore and final song Give It Away, which really got the crowd going, and the closing comments from the band: “We’ll never forget this for the rest of our lives!”
Worst moment: struggling and failing to meet up with friends (the magnificent @Roopunzel and @FunJoel), standing in a loooong line for a beer, and a totally hopeless (but FREE) wi-fi connection…
And here they are, videos from last night, strutting their stuff LIVE in Tel Aviv…