Me and My Friends #49 - Anno Somni
This is another letter from Leni at the immeasurably valuable RHCP Live Archive, all about the just-wrapped 2022 tour. Next month we get deep into some alternative Stadium Arcadium weirdness - stay tuned!
It’s 2022 and we have two brand new albums with John Frusciante back in the band, no less. We might be used to it by now, but the current status of the band was probably the least expected scenario back in 2019.
Again, it’s 2022 and rock music’s is almost dead in a popularity sense. Still, almost 40 years into the band’s career they embarked into one of their most successful tours ever. We don’t have the actual numbers to compare to previous tours, but I’m pretty sure this was their number one tour both in tickets sold and gross ticket revenue.
One year ago, the second KHOT News video revealed the tour dates for the upcoming year:
For the first time ever, the band would be doing a stadium-only tour. They have performed stadium shows many times since 2002 in Europe, South America and Oceania, but never in the United States.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder the band is playing it safe at their live shows. But can we blame them? They don’t owe us shit, that’s a fact. But as a long-time dedicated fan I felt a little disappointed as the tour was reaching the end.
Let’s get to some stats before moving forward:
37 performances and 46 unique songs were performed starting on June 4 in Sevilla, Spain and ending on October 14 in Austin, Texas.
During the tour, they also did some one-offs performances:
August 28 at the MTV Video Music Awards, performing "Black Summer" and "Can’t Stop," receiving the Global Icon Award and winning the Best Rock Video Award.
September 13 at the Apollo Theater, an exclusive show for the SiriusXM Small Concert Series, with very limited tickets available only to contest winners.
September 21 at Oracle Park, a special gig for Dreamfest 2022, in benefit of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.
October 12 at the Hoopa Valley High School, a private free performance at the school’s gym for the Native American community.
We also have a benefit performance at Silverlake Conservatory of Music benefit show coming next week. Those were always exciting so keep an eye out!
You can check the full stats of the tour here, but let’s get into their set lists:
Here’s a breakdown of the songs by album, and how many times each song was played:
Unlimited Love
Black Summer · 37
These Are the Ways · 35
The Heavy Wing · 25
Aquatic Mouth Dance · 19
Here Ever After · 17
Whatchu Thinkin' · 13
She's a Lover · 6
It's Only Natural · 3
One Way Traffic · 2
White Braids & Pillow Chair · 1
Stadium Arcadium
Snow ((Hey Oh)) · 37
Dani California · 36
Tell Me Baby · 16
Charlie · 13
Hard to Concentrate · 9
Wet Sand · 6
Hey · 5
She's Only 18 · 1
Strip My Mind · 1
By the Way
By the Way · 37
Can't Stop · 21
The Zephyr Song · 13
Universally Speaking · 9
Throw Away Your Television · 9
Don't Forget Me · 6
Californication
Californication · 37
Around the World · 17
Otherside · 16
Scar Tissue · 14
Right on Time · 14
I Like Dirt · 11
Parallel Universe · 5
Emit Remmus · 1
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Give It Away · 37
Soul to Squeeze · 22
Under the Bridge · 12
I Could Have Lied · 12
Suck My Kiss · 11
Sir Psycho Sexy · 3
They're Red Hot · 3
Blood Sugar Sex Magik · 1
If You Have to Ask · 1
Other Albums
Nobody Weird Like Me · 15
Me and My Friends · 6
Pea · 4
Eddie · 4
We can clearly see a clear dominance of singles & hits on play counts, something that’s expected at this point.
I’m guessing that to every fan, the shows felt familiar. The opener song always rotated between "Can’t Stop" or "Around the World." They’ve been opening with the first since 2004 and the latter being thrown into rotation in 2017. They opened with "Monarchy of Roses" during the I’m With You Tour but switched back in late 2013. I know there are some rare unique and very, very sporadic exceptions but you get the idea.
The closer song was fixed to "By the Way," which was a surprise since they’ve been previously closing not their shows, but their main set before the encore with it for over 15 years. "Give It Away" took that spot now, which was previously the final song.
"Black Summer," "Snow ((Hey Oh))," "Californication," "Give It Away" and "By the Way" were the only songs performed at every show without exception. "Dani California" only missed the first show of the tour. "These Are the Ways" missed the last two shows of the tour, being replaced by "Eddie."
By now, if you are a fan that’s into their live shows, you know what to expect for half the set. That’s still a lot better than other bands that strictly stick to fixed set lists all the way through for their tours.
The European leg was very exciting, hearing tour debuts at every show and seeing the band figure out song spots during the set, for example "Black Summer" was an early song at first, and then moved down closer to the encore break. The North American leg also started off strong, but the last debut was over two months ago (not counting the recent premiere for the new song "Eddie") and set lists became more and more predictable.
There are still 6 songs to be performed live at least once from Unlimited Love and the last premiere from the album was during the European leg. "Tippa My Tongue," the first single from the latest album was released on August 19 but it has yet to be played live.
I was also vastly surprised for the lack of 80’s songs on their sets, as they mentioned one of the first things they did at rehearsals with John back was play songs from their first three albums only. I was not surprised however about the lack of Navarro and Klinghoffer songs - something totally expected by the fanbase with John’s comeback. Understandable for the band, as most of their huge hits were written with John and with him back, they want to celebrate their catalog together. But it still makes me sad to see so many years from their career being ignored.
I get it, though. Of course I would love to hear deep cuts and early stuff on their sets. But again, they’re a very popular band doing a huge stadium tour. Most of the people only know their greatest hits and most popular songs on streaming services. I’ve confirmed it myself at some shows this year, seeing all the people around me go absolutely mad at huge hits like "Can’t Stop," "Snow ((Hey Oh))," "Californication" or "Give it Away" to name a few, to then proceed to sit down completely out of it, scrolling through their social media while the band was running wild doing "Nobody Weird Like Me" or even the new songs.
Set list length has always being a point of discussion. One could argue doing between 16-17 songs a night it is too short for a band this big (and I agree with that). Other contemporaries currently on tour like The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Green Day or Guns’N’Roses, to name a few, are all doing 20-25 song sets, including festivals, where our boys shorten their set even further to 14-15 songs.
But this is nothing new, the band has never performed over 18-19 songs. There are some rare exceptions here and there, but their shows have always been under the 2-hour mark. In defense, there’s something I have to mention: the band jams a lot during their set, something I don’t see other bands doing not nearly as much. If they wouldn’t, they could easily squeeze 3 or 4 extra songs. Myself and many others, I believe, would rather keep the jams as it adds something unique to the show, but I get the point.
But it’s time to move on - while the Unlimited Love Tour might have ended, they’re still on track to continue their global stadium tour next year with 8 confirmed shows so far in New Zealand and Australia. We already know they will be playing in South America and Asia as well, so it’s only a matter of time before dates get announced. A European Summer festival tour is safe to assume too – they have to reschedule their cancelled Glasgow show, and the Funkyard Festival in Israel (cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic) has confirmed the band will be performing, although we haven’t heard any news in a long time. Their tour crew mentioned being booked all the way up to 2024, so we have an exciting year ahead of us!
For some closing words, I want to make clear it is never my intention to sound negative in any way or form while talking about this band. These are just some numbers and thoughts put into words. As I’ve been following them for over 22 years now, there’s few things in my life that are as important as this band and I couldn’t be more grateful for what this year has brought us. They sound incredible live and their future has never been brighter.
I feel like Unlimited Love was a safe “return to form” album, but Return of the Dream Canteen goes in a very different and much less safer direction (even if it’s from the same studio sessions) and I applaud the band for that. I hope their set lists also get a little bit more surprising and experimental next year! We’ll see soon enough.
Thank you Hamish for having me once again, and thank you for reading.
Leandro
www.rhcplivearchive.com