By Tim
I was at the show at the Ontario Theatre in D.C. on 12/6/84. I was a there mainly to see General Public since I had been a big English Beat fan for several years. The Ontario Theatre was a grand old Movie Palace with a balcony and the bathrooms were up on the balcony level. I remember going up before the show to use the bathroom and from behind a door on the balcony between the Men's room and the Women's room (it must have been the RHCP's dressing room) I heard this wild chanting "We are the chili peppers, Red Hot Chili Pep-pers". I don't quite know how to type in the rythm of the chant, but it was cool. I was one or two people away from the stage - there was a large group of people standing down front. I remember someone tossed some real chili peppers on stage which Anthony seemed to enjoy. As the show went on the crowd got more restless and there were random calls for "General Public". Flea was especially getting annoyed. He spit on at least one guy standing in the front who was heckling. I remember he also broke at least one bass string. Regarding the set list, I remember looking at it on stage at Flea's feet and reading it upside down. I didn't really know any of their songs at the time, and on the set list they had written goofy names for some/most of the songs. The one I remember to this day was on the set list as "Quiche Helicopter" (Police Helicopter). For their grand finale Anthony climbed on the stack of speakers on the right side of the stage (audience's left) while rapping to their cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" and mooned the crowd. |
Back