Anyone who stayed up late to watch the Superbowl last Sunday night (or, y'know, got online the following morning) was treated to a pretty spectacular halftime show from Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers but particularly eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that the Chili Peppers' equipment didn't seem to be plugged into any form of amplifiers, or public address system of any kind. So, did they mime their performance?
Simply put: yes, they did. NFL head honchos were clearly wary of what may happen when you unleash a band like RHCP on a television audience reputed to be in the region of 116 million people, so they apparently took preventative measures to make sure that nothing unplanned happened on screen - even if it largely neutered one of the best live bands on the planet earth. But hey, at least we weren't subjected to the horror of seeing Janet Jackson's nipple on live television.
In a post on the band's official website, Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea commented elaborated on the performance by saying that the drums, bass and guitar weren't amplified but the vocals were indeed live.
"So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it... We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig."
Flea added that they decided against plugging the instruments in to give the illusion of them performing live over the pre-recorded backing track. "We thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance."
Nice one, Flea. Still, though, not nearly as in-your-face as when Nirvana were asked to mime on Top of the Pops in 1991.
