Review of the V2003 Stafford and Chelmsford shows
August 15-18 2003
Wooo what a ride the weekend was!
I left early Friday morning and took the bus to Belgrade and taxi to the
airport. While I was on the bus a fellow fanclub member Pascalle from the
Netherlands called me on my mobile phone and said she was ill and couldn't
come. Her husband Francois came in her place because she had my festival
tickets and everything that somehow needed to get to me. She helped me out
loads with my own trip to the festival and I am very grateful to her for
that! What would I do without her? As you can imagine I was totally bummed
she couldn't attend...
I got to the Belgrade airport, flew to London, met up with fanclub member
Carolina from Portugal and we took the Underground to King's Cross to meet
up with Francois. We ate there, Francois came, we went to get our train
tickets to Stafford, took the train to Stafford, took a cab to the hotel and
finally arrived at the hotel where all the other fanclub members plus
Blackie (Anthony's dad), Terry (webmaster of redhotchilipeppers.com), and
photographer Tony Woolliscroft were waiting. People were coming up to me
from all directions with questions and whatnot so it was sometimes hard to
focus on one person and some organizational things that needed to get
straightened out so I'm sorry if it seemed like I blew anyone off. There
were lots of introductions, old friends catching up, we took a group
picture, Terry got me a drink (next time he better stay and actually have a
drink with me!). Blackie, Terry, and Tony ran off to get dinner and the
rest of us hung out for a while before we went to the pub across the street
to have dinner and chat and bond Chili style. Fanclub member Jayne
unfortunately got ill and went to bed early... she didn't get better and I
don't think she even went to the festival at all... I know the next day she
said she would come later on if she felt better, if not then she would head
home. After we ate it was pretty late so we all retired to our rooms. My
roommate Nikki and I hung out in Nav and Barry's room for a while. Jonny
was there as well. Nikki and I then went back to our room and slept.
The next morning (Saturday) we were all excited about going to the festival.
Hell I even woke up quite early and was so excited I couldn't get back to
sleep! We took a minibus to the park.
Met up with Dave #9686 and him and I waited in front of the Weston Park
House for those not staying at the hotel at 3pm like it said on Bmail but
nobody showed up. That could be partly because it was outside the arena (I
didn't know that when I picked the spot - my bad) and those with day tickets
couldn't go back out once they were in...
We went into the arena and met back up with the rest of the group and
watched PJ Harvey. She did a bunch of songs I didn't know, but I do know
she played Big Exit and the one about hair. I knew a bunch of others but I
can't remember them. She was great as usual though! Queens Of The Stone Age
were pretty good... well the short bit of their show I was paying attention
to at least. We hung out by the backstage entrance to the right of the
stage before and during the Queen's show and Blackie came out and talked
with us a bit. At one point he went backstage and came back out with a
setlist so we got to see what the RHCP were going to play later that night.
A few folks then went into the crowd to watch Queens while the rest of us
were still situated at the right of the stage. David Grey came on after
Queens and when he was about finished we started heading in to find a good
spot. The group of fanclub members was broken into smaller groups by then
but we had all agreed to meet at the right of the stage by the backstage
gate after the show.
Then the moment we had all been waiting for arrived.... THE CHILIS CAME ON!!
The crowd was quite rough... we were on the right side up towards the front,
and when the RHCP busted out with By the Way... things went crazy! Everyone
decided to push forward and were jumping around (or trying to) and I was
completely squished and the group was separated... It got pretty bad and was
like that for a while. It got really hot, I felt faint, and I was having
sharp pains in my side.. I thought I was going to pass out if I stayed there
any longer so I fought my way out to the right where I could get some air..
then I moved back so I could see the screens/stage. I pretty much ended up
watching the Chilis alone that night, but enjoyed the show nonetheless. I
had fun laughing at drunk people stumbling around trying to dance and not
singing the right lyrics... hehe. One girl was not liking John's "Maybe" at
all and found it irritating and said he should leave the singing to Anthony.
I wanted to tell her to bugger off but her boyfriend was really big and buff
and might have crushed me so I decided not to start any trouble. Pacifism
is my thing.
Anthony totally funked up the lyrics on Parallel Universe and Scar Tissue
and just started mumbling something. It made me laugh because I was trying
to sing the proper lyrics but he made me funk them up too!
Flea said "we love you" like he usually does.
At the end of the show someone from the side of the stage notified John that
their time was up and he told the rest of the band. Flea told the crowd
''sorry, we would play all night long if we could but our time is up... you
can't mess with time.'' They wouldn't let them finish the encore and people
started booing... they wanted more! No go though, the show ended, the
larger group of fanclub members reconvened and a bunch of us had to run
around for a while looking for the minibus that was waiting for us. It was
quite a cold night and we froze in the process, but we got to the minibus
and back to the hotel and went to bed.
The RHCP had played (as far as I can remember in no particular order)
By the way
suck my kiss
Universally speaking
Give it away
If you have to ask
Don't forget me
Around the world
Parallel universe
Scar tissue
Otherside
Maybe (John solo)
Can't stop
Venice queen
Soul to squeeze
Short jam of the Clash's "London Callling" into Right on time
The zephyr song
Throw away your television
the encore was Under the Bridge
(they were supposed to do Power of Equality or Sir Psycho Sexy but they were
out of time)
Sunday morning we got up a little earlier as we had a minubus booked for
those of us that needed transport to Chelmsford. It was a nice ride... we
stopped at a rest stop and found the new Kerrang with an RHCP article in it.
It had a few pictures I hadn't seen before but the article just restated
what most of us already know and didn't reveal anything new. Nikki brought
speakers so she hooked them up to her portable CD player and played some
RHCP and we all sang along. We got to the hotel, another car full of
fanclub members came right after us, Roberta from Italy showed up, and we
got ready to head out to the park. The rooms at this hotel were awesome...
they had 2 levels! One bed on the lower level, another up the stairs on the
upper level.
We walked to the train station and got on a double-decker bus that shuttled
us to the park. We met up with Michelle (meesh!). The same performers were
on as the day before so we walked around a bit, got some food, and went to
watch PJ Harvey pretty far back. Hung out there for a while and the big
group ended up splitting up into smaller groups again. We decided to go
through the crowd and look for a good spot for when the RHCP come on. This
venue was smaller than the previous night's. The ground was at a slope so
it was easier to see the stage. We tried getting all the way up front
during David Grey but couldn't so we went back a bit and stayed there for
the Chilis. We were on the left.
The Chilis came on and they just rocked the shit out of the house!! I'm
guessing they wanted to be tip-top since it was being taped. They played (in
no particular order - forgive me if I'm forgetting a song) a similar setlist
to the one at Stafford:
By the Way (I was totally jumping around and going nuts with this one)
Around The World
Parallel Universe
Maybe (John solo)
Don't Forget Me
Havana Affair
A disco version of Donna Summers' "I Feel Love"... that was incredible!
Before it John said " What sucks about these venues is the people on that
side can hear the disco music from the other stage... there's only about 5
people dancing next to a blue light over there...." something like that.
Then they were talking something about playing disco and said "let's try
it!" John siad "this is for those 5 people over there." Then Flea starts
the song by busting out a super pseudo-funky bassline, John joins in and
sings the falsetto part, and Chad is banging away at the drums like a
madman. They were taking us all the way to funkytown and we were loving
it.
Flea played an old jazz classic "Misty" on his TRUMPET!! I was very happy
to see that! He's quite good he'll be famous one day and be rockin' it like
Dizzy Gillespie, you'll see...
Purple Stain (I had my hands up during this one making directional gestures
in beat with "it's way out there but I don't care cause this is what I want
to wear" and spinning my pointer fingers during "now let me spin." I think
someone on stage might have seen it and laughed at me... hehe)
I Could Have Lied
Give it Away
encore: Under the Bridge (gorgeous... it started drizzling)
Me & My Friends!!
There was also a short intro of the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" into one
of he songs but I can't remember which one...? Purple Stain or Parallel
Universe maybe?
Anthony said something about joining everyone camping and eating all their
food. He made me laugh at one point when he was dancing around because it
looked like he was having a seizure or something. He was going very wild!
I was with Michelle, Carolina, Tasha, and Emma during the show.
The Chelmsford show in my opinion is the best RHCP one I've been to so
far... So beautiful, totally unforgettable.
I loved seeing the RHCP with people who appreciate them as much as I do.
After the show we met back up with Francois and Roberta, went to get
Michelle's stuff from the camping area, walked really far back to the hotel
and were dead tired when we came. The others got back by car or bus.
After 4 hours of sleep Carolina, Francois, Claudia from Germany and I got up
to catch the train back to London, got to London and Claudia headed for
Stansted, Francois for his hotel, Carolina and I took the Underground to the
Airport, she flew back to Portugal and I flew back to Belgrade in a plane
full of Welsh guys going to watch the Wales vs. Serbia & Montenegro football
(soccer) game in Belgrade (Wales lost sorry to say - so did New Castle
United a few days ago against us- better luck next time... yeehaa go S&M!)
and took a cab home.
Whew!
Thanks very much to everyone who attended for their cooperation and special
thanks to Tasha and Emma for booking the minibuses!
-Maria#2942