Oh what a difference a few years can make. The last time Red Hot Chili Peppers played Ireland was during 2006’s Oxegen festival where despite some admirable musicianship they played a lackluster show that was them going through the motions and playing live without any real passion. Since then they have gone through yet another guitarist after John Frusciante (considered by many to be the quintessential Chili Pepper guitarist) left the band for the second time. He went on to be replaced by Josh Klinghoffer. What Josh lacks in terms of John’s musical chops he makes up for it in passion. Sure the instrumental jamming is still there but without John’s ability to blaze a solo at will it all comes across as stale and very rhythmic.

With ten albums under their belt now it’s great to see the setlist starting to get a well needed shake up. Having given up on them playing a completely different set each night I’m now looking to what they’re going to come out with along with the hits. Interestingly only four of tonight’s tracks are taken from their most recent release ‘I’m With You’, the only album to feature new kid Klinghoffer, (kid being a fitting term with Klinghoffer as he was only 4 when the Chili Peppers formed). To his credit he does a great job filling Frusciante’s shoes, and of course original guitar player Hillel Slovak on ‘Me and My Friends’. The huge sustained guitar swells on ‘Emit Remmus’ have Josh playing right towards his strengths.

From the opening four song punch of ‘Monarchy of Roses’, ‘Dani California’, ‘Charlie’ and ‘Look Around’ the show proceeds to build up in every way and once we reach the scratch funk of ‘Can’t Stop’ the show is in full swing. Follow that up with a rarely played ‘Emit Remmus’ and 1987’s ‘Me and My Friends’ means we’ve got a very special show on our hands tonight.

Once ‘By The Way’ comes around everything falls into place and we have tonight’s peak. Firing through ‘By the Way’ to a pop art meets punk visual show with all 14,000 attendees in full sing along mode shows just how relevant these California rockers can be when they hit their stride. Given that ‘By The Way’ has been played no less than 320 times live, the sheer passion put into it tonight is incredible. A lot of this new focus and energy has to be credited to Josh who bounds across the stage during ‘Right On Time’. He is clearly growing into his role as a key member and no longer someone on the sidelines. He even returns after the encore wearing an Irish Tricolour tour t-shirt to rapturous applause before they break into a note perfect cover of Neil Young’s ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’

For closing track ‘Give It Away’ there was the interestingly interactive idea to photograph portraits of crowd members in attendance and make them part of the stage show. If there was one criticism of tonight it would be the visual show for the earlier songs not matching the higher production of the latter songs. ‘By The Way’, ‘Californication’ and ‘Give It Away’ only went to show how they lifted and already spectacular performance.

All in all tonight’s show has shown that after nearly 30 years, Red Hot Chili Peppers can still be one of the world’s top live bands. There’s no doubt that Josh Klinghoffer is still in training mode so as he grows in confidence and ability the next few years should be a very exciting time for the California quartet.

Setlist
Monarchy of Roses
Dani California
Charlie
Look Around
Scar Tissue
Throw Away Your Television
The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
Can’t Stop
Emit Remmus
Me & My Friends
Factory of Faith
Under the Bridge
Right On Time
Californication
By the Way

Encore:
Around the World
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Neil Young cover)
Give It Away