Chili Peppers admit guitars weren't plugged in for Super Bowl show
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have defended miming during last Sunday night's Super Bowl peformance.
The veteran Californian rockers came under fire this week after viewers noticed that they didn't appear to have their guitars plugged in during the performance with Bruno Mars, during which they 'played' seminal track 'Give It Away'.
It didn't go unnoticed.
That guitar is plugged into NOTHING
— Vernon Reid (@vurnt22) February 3, 2014
(the Chilis' bit starts around 7:30):
In a blog post on the official Red Hot Chili Peppers site, bassist Flea explained that the decision hadn't been an easy one.
"When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song Give It Away at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded," he said, explaining that the NFL did not want "to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period".
"The Red Hot Chili Peppers stance on any sort of miming has been that we will absolutely not do it," he added.
"The last time we did it (or tried to) was in the late 80's, we were thrown off of 'The Top Of the Pops' television program in the U.K. during rehearsals because we refused to mime properly."
However, he said that given the once in a lifetime opportunity of playing the Super Bowl - and the fact that the band are football fans, they decided to do it.
" We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it," he said.
"Besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell."
Flea explained that he, drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer were miming to a track specially pre-recorded for the occasion, while frontman Anthony Kiedis was singing live.
"It was like making a music video in front of a gazillion people, except with live vocals, and only one chance to rock it," he wrote.
"Our only thought was to bring the spirit of who we are to the people."
Storm in a teacup? Or should the Chilishave taken a principled stance and refused to appear without playing live?
