How the Red Hot Chili Peppers ruined a Ramones concert
Punk music can often be overlooked and misunderstood. It’s commonly seen as a messy and completely unstructured sound, one where the fact that it is inaccessible is the appeal. Granted, this might be the case for many punk bands; however, not all of them. Some bands follow a very specific structure within their music, and they hold their craft close to their heart.
The Ramones were a prime example of one of these musical outfits. While they had a messy style, and their sound was laden with distortion and far removed from other music that was dominating the charts, there was no escaping the fact that they cared deeply about the music they were making and were complete perfectionists.
This is best personified in the fact that before a gig, they would run through their entire set in their dressing room, amps turned down and sound stripped back, to ensure that all of it was as good as possible before they took to the stage. Then, when they went on the stage, what looked like a chaotic performance was actually the result of something incredibly calculated and well-crafted.
When the Red Hot Chili Peppers supported the band on tour, Anthony Kiedis was a huge fan and massively impressed with how seriously they took their music. He and the rest of the band wanted to show The Ramones appreciation for their hard work one night, and so they did this the only way that a band as outrageous as the Red Hot Chili Peppers knew how.
“We decided it would be a great moment of homage if we would dance across the stage naked during the Ramone set,” he said, reminiscing about the gig. “At that time, I had never seen The Ramones play, and I didn’t realise they were all business on stage, and they had their idea of what a show should be in their own aesthetic and their own presentation.”
The Ramones put in the hard work to perfect their gigs because they wanted to show their audience the best time possible. This involved carefully curated music and a well-thought-out stage presence—it didn’t involve a naked Red Hot Chili Peppers running on during one of the songs.
“We all stripped down naked on the side of the stage and danced with love in our hearts across the front of the stage,” said Kiedis, “Not that obnoxious thing where you kind of stop and soak up the spotlight, but just a conveyor belt of three naked dancers going across the stage. And then we got off.”
While the action might have come from a good place from the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s point of view, The Ramones weren’t happy about the stunt whatsoever. Joey particularly didn’t enjoy the display, and he let the band know about it afterwards.
“We ran into him in the lobby of this bizarre Finish compound, and he was yelling at us in a very strict and hateful manner about how we had no business doing that… Needless to say, my heart sank because that was not our intention.”
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