Red Hot Chili Peppers at Snapdragon Stadium

The Red Hot Chili Peppers played what may be their last SoCal show of 2023 at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, CA May 12th, as part of their Unlimited Love tour which began in June 2022. Snapdragon replaced Qualcomm stadium which stood for 50 years and hosted the San Diego Aztecs (now at Snapdragon) San Diego Chargers (Now L.A. and at Sofi Stadium), the San Diego Padres before Petco Park, and also hosted three SuperBowls. In addition to the Aztecs, Snapdragon is the home of soccer team San Diego Wave and Rugby team San Diego Legion. Snapdragon opened just last year under SDSU and only took two years to build with a cost of a little over $300 million to build.

RHCP played their first show of the year at the iHeart AlterEgo in January playing a set of 10 songs and their first full show at Allegiant Stadium Las Vegas April 1st. Before returning to North America the group had make-up shows in New Zealand and Australia, then played Singapore and Japan before playing Mexico and Canada. Last year was a big year for the group being the first time they released two albums the same year Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen. It was also the group’s first tour and album with John Frusciante since Stadium Arcadium. The band received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to go along with the release of Unlimited Love and the album went to number on Billboard 200, Top Alternative Albums, and Top Rock Albums charts as well as going to number one in over 10 countries.The lineup varies by city and the other acts on the bill have included The Strokes, St Vincent Haim, Beck and King Princess. For this show Thundercat who has been an opener most the tour was the first act followed by The Mars Volta who have toured with RHCP in the past.

The 19-song setlist consisted of songs off Blood Sugar Sex Magic, Californication, By the Way, Unlimited Love, and Return of the Dream Canteen. As always the show began with a jam of Flea, Smith, and Frusciante before Anthony Kiedis came out. This led into “Can’t Stop.” The set included older hits like “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” “Dani California,” “Californication,” and “By The Way,” in addition to their latest hits like “Aquatic Mouth Dance, “Black Summer,” and “Tippa My Tongue.”

On the stadium tour the band has played songs from all their albums except for Im With You and Go Robot which were recorded with Josh Klinghoffer who replaced Frusciante for 10 years, and from One Hot Minute only “Pea” has been performed solo by Flea occasionally. There have been almost 70 originals performed and around 25 covers including full songs and shortened versions. So far 10 of the 17 songs on Unlimited Love have been performed and five from Return of the Dream Canteen of 17 songs. For the encore “I Could've Lied” replaced “Under the Bridge,” and the closing song was “Give It Away.”

The U.S. tour will continue through the end of May and also includes a festival performance at Hang Music Fest this weekend and another at Bottlerock in Napa Valley, CA. In June and July they will tour across Europe and the U.K. before playing the U.S. again in August for the Lollapalooza and Sound on Sound festivals. The final shows of the year will take place in November across Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.