What did Red Hot Chili Peppers play during their festival closing set at the notoriously chaotic Woodstock ’99? Their 16-song headlining performance featured a wealth of hits, some deeper cuts and a pair of covers with the closing cover being unfortunately timed given the events that were going on in the crowd.
Bringing Californication to Woodstock
Woodstock ’99 organizers may have envisioned “dreams of Californication” putting a capper on a peaceful ceremony, but the results were far from it. That said, the festival did provide the Red Hot Chili Peppers with a giant platform from which they could show off their latest album.
Californication arrived on June 8, 1999, just a little over a month prior to the band’s headlining set closing out Woodstock ’99. The album was generating plenty of positive buzz with the return of guitarist John Frusciante to the fold and the current single at the time, “Scar Tissue,” was a radio smash. It spent a record 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart as well as 10 weeks at No. 1 for the Mainstream Rock radio chart. So the band’s place atop the bill was well received and expected.
During their set, six of their 16 songs came from the Californication album, including the set-opening “Around the World,” which would be released as the second single in September of 1999, “Scar Tissue” and the future single title track. Oddly enough, another future hit “Otherside” was not part of the performance, though deeper cuts “Easily,” “Emit Remmus” and “Right on Time” were all included.
The performance also featured two cover songs, with the band dropping in Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” at one point and finishing out the evening with the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Fire,” which was unfortunately timed given the dangerous mayhem going on in the audience as their set ended.
Check out the full setlist below:
Red Hot Chili Peppers at Woodstock ’99 – Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y. (July 25, 1999) (per Setlist.fm)
1. “Around the World”
2. “Give It Away”‘
3. “Scar Tissue”
4. “Emit Remmus”
5. “Soul to Squeeze”
6. “If You Have to Ask”
7. “Suck My Kiss”
8. “Tiny Dancer” (Elton John Cover)
9. “Right on Time”
10. “Californication”
11. “My Lovely Man”
12. “Easily”
13. “Under the Bridge”
14. “Me & My Friends”
Encore
15. “Sir Psycho Sexy”
16. “Fire” (Jimi Hendrix Experience cover)
Why Was Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Woodstock ’99 Performance Notable?
Perhaps embodying a bit of the spirit of the original Woodstock, bassist Flea decided to perform the set naked, being among the first to take the stage jumping up and down with his genitals exposed before keeping his privates somewhat hidden behind his bass as they began to play. This wasn’t too unexpected for the band, who had famously been photographed only with socks covering their genitals in the past.
Where things started to go wrong in their set was something that had been organized with only the most positive of intentions. The anti-gun violence organization PAX had started distributing candles during the day with a proposed candlelight vigil to take place for the victims of the Columbine High School shooting that would take place during the Chili Peppers’ performance of “Under the Bridge.”
But the audience, who had grown more combative throughout a weekend of intense heat, exorbitant prices and aggressively heavy music, had another use in mind for the candles. They started to create bonfires in the crowd from the plywood torn from structures and the growing amounts of trash that littered the festival grounds. This only continued to escalate as the band finished out the body of their set with “Under the Bridge” and “Me and My Friends,” before exiting the stage as part of their encore setup.
READ MORE: Were Limp Bizkit Really to Blame for Woodstock ’99?
At this point, it was learned that one of the audio towers had caught fire and it had become dangerous. Not long after, some audience members climbed the base of the tower and brought it tumbling down onto the ground below.
Rome’s mayor pleaded with the band to return to the stage and try to calm the masses, but singer Anthony Kiedis responded that there was nothing he could do. Eventually the band returned to the stage as more fires were breaking out in different parts of the audience. The group finished out their night with “Sir Psycho Sexy” before closing out the festival with a performance of The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Fire.”
That may have seemed like a bit of commentary from the band on what was happening in the crowd, but as Kiedis later explained in his autobiography “Scar Tissue,” Jimi Hendrix’s sister had asked them to play the song in honor of late guitar god who famously played the original Woodstock.
Reflecting on the rioting that ensued during and after the performance, Kiedis stated, “It was clear that this situation had nothing to do with Woodstock anymore. It wasn’t symbolic of peace and love, but of greed and cashing in.”
After the festival had concluded, rioting and looting of abandoned vendor booths continued into the early morning. New York State Police troopers were called in to help to disperse the crowd.
Photos: How Woodstock ’99 Progressed Into Absolute Chaos
The most infamous festival of all time.
