Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots & Bicycle Thief

"There’s a Skinhead in the front row here who was heckling us when we came into town two months ago…" shouts Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland, wrapped in an American flag, "Now I kiss and tell…" The audience screams, "And I fucked that faggot!"

Weiland obviously has not been an upstanding citizen, he was loaded, breaking his probation.

They opened the show with "Wicked Garden," and satisfied the crowd by playing all of their hits, songs like "Vaseline," "Sour Girl" and "Plush." Scott Weiland gave a full-on Rockstar show, complete with getting off the stage and into the throngs of screaming fans — braving the masses of people he had dared to leave their shit seats on the lawn and join him up front — yelling, "I’m not selling fucking steaks here!" My box partners and I had to defend our territory with our life or lose them to the thousands, until the brave men and women of the Sac Valley Amp regulated.

For the last song of their set, before the encore, the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers joined STP onstage to perform "Interstate Lovesong." Chad Smith was beating the hell out of that drum set so it was pretty apparent that he was excited to be playing with them.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers nailed all of their classics, thrilling the crowd with greats like "Under The Bridge" and "Skinny Sweaty Man in a Green Suit." They somehow also power packed the lineup with songs off of their huge latest, Californication, and spellbinding freestyle sessions.

Old school-style TV sets, hanging from the light fixtures, projected colorful images along with up-close and personal footage from cameras attached to the mic stands.

The title track from Californication was the amazing crowd favorite, making me feel damn good about being a California Girl. Accompanied with projections of rolling clouds in psychedelic colors, my thousands of peers and I gave in to the balmy night, the moon above, the music washing over us and just floated away. Cheesy, but damn good!

Surprisingly, Flea was the primary entertainer of the group, impishly leaping around like you could see he was enjoying playing for us as much as we were enjoying him. At one point he held a yoga position for almost two minutes, standing on his head while playing and effortlessly flipping over on to his feet bass in place, without missing a beat.

John Frusciante performed a solo, all three of his band mates exiting so he could have the spotlight. Few people know that, along with some of the best guitar playing around, he is gifted in voice and verse. Immediately following the solo, he segued into "Scar Tissue" without skipping a note. Anthony Kiedis and Flea walked onstage playing along, Chad Smith slipped behind his drums and the crowd went wild.

Flea and Frusciante joined in a freestyle jam, showcasing the fusion of bass and guitar that makes The Chili Peppers such a phenomenal group.

They are one of the only bands to overcome the infamous perils of superstardom such as a death in the band, various line-up changes and serious addictions. Such trials and tribulations tend to either cause a group to break up or start releasing shitty albums. The Red Hots, however, seemed to have prevailed over such obstacles and on the contrary it reinstated the whole point, the music.

Each member was in perfect health and high spirits, they have apparently matured as men as well as musicians.

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