Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1991.
Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette The band performs at the Rolling Rock Town Fair near the Westmoreland County Fairgrounds in Mount Pleasant in 2000. gave Tony a handful of cash money, and off they went.”
When they walked, they noticed what happened in the dressing room: a mirror was smashed, the bathroom door was kicked in, food was all over the place.
But this happened all the time with rock stars, right?
“It was unprecedented for me,” Mr. Policcicio says. “And there was a difference between making a mess out of anger and making a mess out of frivolity and fun. This was anger.”
It wasn’t clear who did what, but Fishbone’s outraged tour manager pulled his band off the bus and made them apologize and gave back some money for damages.
This was the last time Pittsburgh audiences would see Slovak, who died of a heroin overdose two months later. In that same dressing room a few years later, Nirvana would come in and set the couch on fire after a discrepancy over merch sales. With: Where: When: Tickets:
The Peppers’ popularity started to pick up (sorry, had to) with 1989’s “Mother’s Milk,” complete with a slamming cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” setting the stage for the breakout of 1991’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.” Stocked with the hits “Give it Away,” “Breaking the Girl,” “Suck My Kiss” and “Under the Bridge,” the Rick Rubin-produced album was released on Sept. 24, 1991, the same day as Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and a month after Pearl Jam’s “Ten.” It was also a month after the end of the first Lollapalooza tour, so the alt-rock thing was blowing up. The Peppers, with guitarist John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith, hit the Duquesne University gym topping a bill that would make people now wish they had a time machine: Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam.
The crowd, 3,269 strong, threw all the chairs to the back of the venue so they could mosh and stage-dive up front, just like in the videos. The Peppers’ high-energy set climaxed with Flea smashing his bass and Smith overturning his drums and diving into the crowd on the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy.”
There was less enthusiasm for the openers. The Pumpkins’ “Gish” had been out for a few months and was a minor success. Pearl Jam’s “Ten” came out in late August but really didn’t kick in for people until 1992. The Pumpkins’ frontman scolded the crowd, according to The Pittsburgh Press, saying, “Hey, you know Pittsburgh’s got a really bad rap [expletives deleted]. You guys are supposed to be really lame. You sure didn’t do a very good job during Pearl Jam.”