Me and My Friends #37 - Cancelled Shows Galore
This entry, written by Leandro Cabo, serves both as a prequel and sequel to newsletter #6, Falling Apart in 1992, as we try to dig a little deeper into the reasons that lead to John Frusciante quitting the band on May 7, 1992, and the aftermath leading to the 6th studio album.
After such a reclusive and intense creative experience recording Blood Sugar Sex Magik at The Mansion, John didn’t consider touring as a creative experience and felt that he should just quit the band – which he obviously didn’t (just yet).
To promote the album, Anthony and John both agreed to make a trip to Europe in September 1991 to do some press and interviews. During this trip, they were featured on the well-known VPRO ONRUST! broadcast, with the very first public performance of “Under the Bridge.”
Although John looks very happy and energetic in this footage, after reaching London a few days later, he felt overwhelmed by the experience and decided to return home.
Following the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the band started the first leg of the album world tour in the US on October 16, 1991. They were playing much bigger venues than previous tours and this upset John, as he always wanted the band to remain in the underground music scene. He began entering into a state of denial and depression, feeling troubled by fame while falling out with his bandmates, especially with Anthony. He completely isolated himself and started developing a blossoming drug problem.
Overall, the tour was doing great besides some sporadic low points, until February 1992 when it was time for the European leg. In need of someone to connect to, he brought along his girlfriend Toni Oswald, breaking their unwritten rule of no spouses or girlfriends on the road.
John’s behaviour with the band, both on personal levels and on stage, hit the lowest point at this time. He was playing very poorly on purpose, if at all, often just letting his guitar buzz during solos. In his mind, he was rebelling against the commercialisation of art and the world of popular music.
In my opinion, his breaking point was the moment the band was asked to perform on Saturday Night Live on February 22, 1992. The main issue was that they had shows previously booked in Europe until mid-March. Here’s the official tour dates for the European leg in February and March 1992, as seen in Vol. 1 – Issue #6 of the Rockinfreakapotamus official fan club magazine from December 1991.
If they agreed, they would have to put their European tour on hold, fly most of their crew and equipment to the US for this 2-song TV appearance alone, and come back to Europe to resume their tour, not without rescheduling no less than 5 sold-out shows with just 2 weeks of notice:
February 18 to March 18 – Forum am Schlosspark – Ludwigsburg, Germany
February 19 to March 17 – Philips Halle – Dusseldorf, Germany
February 20 to March 16 – PC69 – Bielefeld, Germany
February 22 to March 22 – Die Halle - Berlin, Germany
February 23 to March 20 – Jurahallen - Neumarkt, Germany
And that’s exactly what they ended up doing. Much has been told about the SNL performance already - John was reportedly on edge the entire evening and nearly got in a physical altercation with a crew member prior to the broadcast.
If you put yourself in his shoes and try to see things from his point of view, one could seemingly understand why he was so angry at the band that he tried to sabotage the performance by playing arrhythmic, slightly dissonant, and marginally out-of-place chords. Let’s not forget he was just 21 years old at the time and his life had completely changed during the last few months.
Here’s what Anthony said on his autobiography:
We were on live TV in front of millions of people, and it was torture. I started to sing in what I thought was the key, even if it wasn’t the key he was playing in. I felt like I was getting stabbed in the back and high out to dry in front of all of America while this guy was off in a corner in the shadow, playing some dissonant out-of-tune experiment. I thought he was doing that on purpose, just to fuck with me.
There’s a misconception about the infamous Anthony’s microphone kick to John during “Stone Cold Bush”, about it being some kind of punishment for his “Under the Bridge” performance. Whether or not the kick was intentional (and whether or not it actually played any role in what came next), this is completely wrong, as “Stone Cold Bush” was the first song performed.
Was it all worth it, though? From a commercial standpoint, undoubtedly. Coincidentally or not, album sales escalated after the broadcast and “Under the Bridge” charted for the first time on March 14, staying on charts for 18 weeks. But this was the exact opposite of what John desired.
Back in Europe, it all started going downhill, and fast – on February 29, the band was featured on Les Nuls L’Emission, a Canal+ show featuring a French group of comedians in a similar model to SNL. And once again, John did it again.
The performance kicks off with “Give It Away,” but John’s guitar doesn’t start working until the first chorus, which makes Anthony holding a guitar look even more ridiculous. He looks a bit upset for someone that supposedly doesn’t care about his performance on stage, though. The rest of the song goes pretty solid, at least for 1992 RHCP-live standards.
But then, “Under the Bridge” starts and the tension is clearly palpable. You can clearly see Flea trying to figure out what John might do next, Chad awkwardly smiling while looking at his bandmates and Anthony really struggling to sing trying to follow the improvised take on the Under the Bridge riff. I personally think these are very interesting performances but I can’t stop wondering if the other guys ever actually called John out on his behaviour or if they would just put up with him, hoping it would all phase out soon. I guess, seeing the fragile yet explosive state of mind he was living in during the tour, it was the latter.
The band was also supposed to play in Vienna that same night, as seen in the fan club itinerary previously. For some reason, they didn’t, as seen in “Now Watch Him Die”, Henry Rollins tour journal entries. He led “Rollins Band”, which was the opener for this European leg:
He mentions the Chili Peppers having a night off, so I don’t think the band was ever actually assumed to play this night as the Fritz Club is a very tiny club. There are no tickets, flyers, adverts, anything that suggests so sans that early fan club listing.
The band went on and played the well-known and documented Palatrussardi show in Milan on March 1. Again, quite a good show with nothing really out of the usual for this era.
But the next day, they would travel back again to France for a show in Lyon. This is another show listed in the fan club magazine, that the band was supposed to play, but for unknown reasons didn’t. Once again, an excerpt from Henry Rollins’ journals:
No official statements were done at the time for the cancellation, at least nothing was found out there at this time.
One cool thing about the tour, is that the tickets were shaped as the band logo:
Just a very cool souvenir to remember in an era of all-digital tickets.
There was yet another scheduled TV performance on this European leg. Little has been spoken about it, mostly because it never ended up happening. The band headed to the UK and some days later, they were asked to play on Top of the Pops. The performance would be taped on March 11, but they already had a commitment that day: a show at the Carling Academy in Manchester. So once again, without further ado, they just went on and cancelled the sold-out date, traveling instead to the BBC Studios in London.
But things didn’t go as planned, at all. The show producers insisted on them lip-synching “Under the Bridge” and the band was reportedly unhappy about miming a live performance. So they would only do it dressed up in Victorian dresses, while goofing around and switching instruments. The producers completely refused, and the band was asked to leave.
Not only had neither of the performances happened, the Manchester date was never rescheduled. This leg ended after playing the rescheduled Germany dates and it was now time to go back to the States.
Falling apart in 1992 picks up from here and follows the band through the Hawaii and Japan shows, ending up with John quitting the band, so we’ll continue on from there.
The band had 7 shows booked in Australia and New Zealand exactly a week from May 7, when John quit the band and played his final show.
The next day, Chad, Flea and Anthony flew into Sydney, meeting up with Zander Schloss and tried to rehearse twice a day, the bare minimum that allowed them to play the shows. Of course, it didn’t work out and the entire run of shows was inevitably cancelled. They were eventually rescheduled for October.
The band flew back to Los Angeles. They had to act quickly – they were headlining the Lollapalooza tour from July to September, after playing two big festival dates in Europe.
Their first thought was contacting Dave Navarro, who had just split from Jane’s Addiction, but he was busy with his project Deconstruction at the time. Buckethead, among other players, was auditioned, but they felt it was not right for the band.
They eventually asked Arik Marshall, the shy and reserved guitar player from Marshall Law, a band the guys had become fond of in recent years. He was given three weeks to become acquainted with his new bandmates and learn their repertoire before debuting in front of over 60.000 people, coming from a background of gigging in small clubs in the LA area.
Meanwhile, John was back at home spending all his time drinking wine, painting, writing in notebooks and smoking pot. Later, as he started to develop his heroin addiction, his musical endeavours was given less and less attention.
On July 18, he met the band at their first show of the Lollapalooza tour. Here’s what Chad told later to Rock Brigade magazine from Brazil:
I haven’t seen him since Lollapalooza’s first concert in San Francisco in July ‘92. He needs some time to himself because the work was tough and John didn’t want to do all the natural things that involve working with a band, like traveling, making videos and giving interviews. He no longer enjoyed playing live. When he felt that he didn’t contribute anything to the group, he decided not to get in the way and leave the band. It was sad for us, as we had an inexplicable musical telepathy that it lasted 4 years. I miss that and John as a personal friend. I hope he starts his own band soon as he was only 18 when he joined the band and I think the popularity has affected him in some way. But we still love him.
After Lollapalooza, it was time to visit Australia and New Zealand for the first time and play the rescheduled dates. After that, two months off, so everybody went back to LA. Except for Anthony, who travelled to the island of Borneo with Dutch tattoo artist, Henk Schiffmacher. The trip was documented on Henk’s book De grote Borneo Expeditie.
The band visited South America for the first time in January 1993, and except for the Grammy Awards performance and an unconfirmed New Orleans show that probably never happened, spent some time jamming and writing ideas for a potential new album. Some demos were recorded in April 1993, which sessions we have absolutely no knowledge about except that they were abandoned due to the lack of writing chemistry with Arik.
A short tour was booked for summer, which was ultimately cancelled around a month before the dates. The reason was that Flea was suffering from “chronic fatigue syndrome” as the result of heavy touring (although the band had been off the road for five months):
June 25 – Glastonbury Festival – Glastonbury, England
June 27 – Sunstroke Festival – Dublin, Ireland
July 4 – Roskilde Festival – Roskilde, Denmark
July 5 – Sjohistoriska Museet – Stockholm, Sweden
July 10 – Bizarre Festival – St. Goarshausen, Germany
August 14 – Sunfest Festival – Winnipeg, Canada
In reality, just after the tour announcement, they knew it was time to let Arik go. So once again, they were a band without a guitar player. This time, and for the first (and last) time in the band’s career, it was decided to do an open audition. This ad was featured on the June 18-24, 1993 issue of the L.A. Weekly:
As one can imagine, thousands of submissions were received. Hundreds were pre-auditioned by their roadies. A handful managed to jam with the band. But not a single guitar player made the final cut.
They ended up asking Jesse Tobias from Mother Tongue and he immediately quit his band to join the Chili Peppers – unfortunately, things weren’t working out at rehearsals. Luckily enough, they got the call that Dave Navarro was now available.
So only after a month, Jesse was out and Dave finally joined on September 5. Their first move as a band was getting Harley Davidson for each and starting a mock motorcycle gang called “The Sensitives” as a way to bond and get to know each other better.
Rehearsals started immediately, chemistry got going and so by February/March 1994, the band flown to Hawaii to write new songs for a month, took a break back to Los Angeles, then another month of writing and demoing in the sunny island.
Finally back in LA they were ready to enter the studio – but first, two warm-up unannounced shows at the Viper Room and Sellout at Dragonfly on May 30 and 31, respectively.
In early June, the band entered Sound City Studios for tracking sessions of their upcoming album, intended for an October 1994 release. But in classic Chili Pepper fashion, it would suffer a few delays.
By August, they had managed to record all of the basic tracks so it was time for vocals – except that it was now time to embark for the Tour de la Sensitive (and ode to their motorcycle gang), a 12-date adventure starting with a warm-up show at the Club Lingerie just before Woodstock Festival, and finishing with a double date gig opening for the Rolling Stones at the Pasadena Rose Bowl.
Now, the album was slated for Spring 1995, followed by a tentative US tour. So it was time to go back to the studio to finish overdubs and record vocals. Unknown to their bandmates yet, Anthony was going through a heavy drug relapse after almost six years of sobriety and in consequence was having trouble finishing lyrics, so little to zero work was done by the end of 1994.
After getting clean and taking another trip, this time to the Caribbean with his girlfriend and then Taos, New Mexico with Flea to write some more stuff, they entered the studio in January 1995 and by the end of February, the album was pretty much ready and everything was ready to get things rolling. Except that on the final day of recording, Anthony relapsed yet again, and this time he wound up checking in for a month of rehab at Exodus in Los Angeles. All progress on the album ground to a halt.
This also meant that yet another Australian tour was delayed. Announced in February 1995, the Alternative Nation festival – designed as a competitor to the Big Day Out and held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne – was meant to coincide with a full-blown Australian/NZ tour in April, and probably the release of One Hot Minute:
Of course, just after this announcement, the band cancelled, being replaced by Nine Inch Nails and Lou Reed, and the ensuing fallout created a bit of a dustup between two rival concert promoters down under.
In the press at the time, it was Anthony’s turn to be given chronic fatigue, or occasionally an undisclosed illness:
Of course, sometimes the press got it right:
Once Anthony emerged from rehab, the band were able to put the finishing touches on the album. The first official release date for the album was published: August 8, only to be shortly delayed for another month.
One Hot Minute was finally released on September 12, 1995 with the tour starting two weeks later in Europe, things were back to normal in the Chili Peppers camp… but not for long!