14 DAY TRIAL // As much praise as the Halftime performance at the Super Bowl 2014 generated for Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it also led to some negative buzz online after people noticed that the rockers from the band didn’t have their instruments plugged into anything.
There was no question that Bruno and lead singer Anthony Kiedis performed live, but some fans found upsetting the possibility that the rest of the band would only pretend to play the instruments when what they heard was, in fact, a pre-recorded song.
The buzz soon grew into a debate on whether the RHCP had faked their way through the gig or not but, before things got too out of hand, bassist Flea has penned an open letter to fans to explain why it had seemed as if they weren’t playing live.
That’s because they weren’t, plain and simple. Though the band always refuses to mime for the cameras, this time was an exception they just had to make.
“[The NFL told us that] the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL's stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period,” Flea writes.
He also says that he and Josh Klinghoffer could have simply plugged in their guitars and then the whole controversy would have been a non-issue because no one would have known they never played their instruments live.
However, “we thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance,” Flea says. At least he’s being honest about it – and they did do an amazing job nonetheless.
See for yourself.
