I would have never thought, but Axl Rose is actually trying to be funny? By now everyone knows that the Red Hot Chili Peppers weren’t playing live at the Super Bowl last Sunday. After a lot of talk around their nevertheless convincing performance, it was established they were doing a karaoke for the masses. For those who still have doubts, Flea just admitted it in a long post that you can read on the band website. Basically he is admitting what everybody was suggesting, explaining that ‘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.’ Flea kind of apologizes, saying how much the RHCP take their music seriously, how much they were reticent doing the show under such conditions, but they finally decided to go with it: ‘We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and 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. Plus, we the RHCP all love football too and that played a big part in our decision. 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.’
Blablabla, they did their lip-thumb-finger-synching and I bet they were hoping nobody would notice. But what does Axl Rose have to do with all this? He just put his two cents in the middle of this non-controversy, and wrote this long and semi-hilarious post on the Hollywood Reporter, entitled ‘In the Name of Science’. He is of course entirely making fun of the RHCP, and I admit I laughed a bit at ‘in the name of science and for all mankind Flea courageously had a newly invented breakthrough in microchip technology installed in his ass that picked up the frequencies of his bass and transmitted them to his amplifier’. But it goes downhill after this, how does Axl Rose manage to link all this to Google technology and Mendela’s funerals? At first, I was almost ready to think he should get a column somewhere, but after reflection, he should keep doing what he is doing, being a grumpy reclusive, Botox-injected, aging rock star.
Read Axl Rose’s entire post below at your own risk:
‘In The Name Of Science
In regard to the internet’s “no wireless” controversy regarding the Red Hot Chili Peppers Superbowl performance as reported on ESPN…
I enjoyed the show and I’ve no idea what the real story is nor would I want to suggest or imply anyone wasn’t actually performing or that what they were playing wasn’t what we actually heard. That said I feel it’s important to always look on the positive side of things and to give the benefit of doubt.
So consider that maybe sometime before their actual performance that rather than use a guitar cord or standard wireless, that in the name of science and for all mankind Flea courageously had a newly invented breakthrough in microchip technology installed in his ass that picked up the frequencies of his bass and transmitted them to his amplifier.
Maybe they all had microchips installed in their asses and not only pick up the frequencies of their instruments but get Direct TV and the internet too! Like Google Glass… Google Ass! They could be “Scientific Pioneers!” Like Buzz Aldrin and shit! True (pardon the pun) ASS-tro-nots! Or like Superbowl crash test dummies for bands kinda like those cars that drive themselves!
And besides… If the band wasn’t really playing or wireless or whatever and Anthony was really singing they may have set a new world record for the largest karaoke audience ever! Awesome!
So relax and show some pride! This is probably all just Google finding new ways to enrich our lives with the selfless volunteering of the Peppers and the ever ongoing creative process of true innovation or perhaps a new lounge bar record of super magnificent proportions and a new pinnacle of human achievement not seen since the sign language guy in South Africa!
God Bless America, the Peppers n’ technology… PN’T!
Ax’