According to the RHCP official site, the European tour dates for May-July 2006 will be posted there on Tuesday, 7th February.

So…if you live on the Old Continent (like me), if you’re dying to see John and the guys in action (like me), especially if you haven’t had a chance before (like me), keep your eye on the redhotchilipeppers dot com (like me).

Some sources say that the shows will be indoors, while a couple of other sites claim that events in UK will be held on football stadiums.

This is an excerpt from an article published on Billboard.com…Anthony had some really nice words to say regarding John’s playing on Stadium Arcadium:

Kiedis cites “Snow” as one of his favorite tunes from the new album, due to its “really crazy sounding guitar part. It’s very busy but rhythmically desirable at the same time. That has grown into one of the epic, kind of great-feeling jams on this record.” Another tune, “Wet Sand,” goes in a new structural direction. “It isn’t so much verse/chorus/verse/chorus with a bridge,” Kiedis says. “It has a beginning, a middle and an end, which I like as a change of pace.”

Fans are sure to be thrilled by the playing of guitarist John Frusciante, who here eschews the more minimalist approach of the Peppers’ past two albums. Says Kiedis, “On this record, he was kind of like, ‘Okay, it’s time for me to lay it all on the table and really shine as a guitar player.’ He’s a lot more balls-out. It’s very solo intensive — there’s some incredible guitar solos. I guess there’s still a little bit of early Beach Boys and early Electric Light Orchestra and intense vocal harmonies. They make themselves known.”

People who live in UK or who have their ways of getting there might be interested in this newsbit from efestivals.co.uk:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - top of many people’s lists for a festival headliner - look likely to play a series of stadium shows around the UK this summer. According to a report in the East Anglian Times, “talks have taken place to get the Red Hot Chili Peppers to play at Ipswich Town’s Portman Road stadium”.

With lots of new and revamped football stadiums around the country, the football clubs are looking for ways to get extra use (and money) from them. One-off shows in stadia are becoming ever more popular, with R.E.M., Coldplay and others performing on pitches last summer. If the Chili’s do get to play at Portman Road, we’d expect it to be in June, as that’s kindest to the pitch. It’s likely that the Chilis would perform a series of outdoor shows around the UK.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are due to release a new double album - ‘Stadium Arcadium’ - on May 8th. They last appeared in the UK in 2004 when they played in London’s Hyde Park, as well as in Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Manchester.

As you might have or might not have noticed since it just happened, an interim version of the RHCP’s official site was launched a couple of hours ago. It also means that the fanclub is back and that the old message board, which so many people loved, is going to be closed. Now…yes, there is a new message board but it does not have a forum dedicated to John and his solo work like the old one, and half of the board is restricted to the members who did not pay circa 30 dollars for the silver or circa 40 dollars for the gold membership. So, yes, people have to pay to access some areas of the message board as well.

Now, combined to the second part of this news item, this all can sound very disappointing and make the fans wonder if it’s really about the music or something else. According to MTV.com which interviewed mr. singer man, there’s an idea regarding the release of the 13 songs that won’t make it to Stadium Arcadium. Apparently, there’s a possibility of releasing 13 different versions of the CD and each one would have a different bonus track! The bonus track would depend on the place where the CD was bought or where it was downloaded from.

Also, Anthony Kiedis said this about John’s work on the new album:

John has really fallen in love with the art of treating sounds. [The album's] layered, but not in a heavy-handed way. John’s work is definitely of the masterpiece quality, as a guitar player and sound treatment-ist. He has certainly gone to some weird über-level of hearing some Beethoven-sized symphony sh– in his head. He really shines on this record.

…and that’s about the only good thing in the whole article. The rest is mainly a proof that RHCP might have matured a lot, but they don’t see much of the world outside of their neighbourhood or, in the best case, their country, since, well, asking the fans to hunt down the bonus track and actually pay for reading half of the message board is a philosophy that was probably developed from a line such as “we all live in Hollywood”. Well, guys, I’ve got news for you: we don’t!

You can read the whole article here or under the following link.

continue reading » »

Here’s the [possible] track listing for the first half of Stadium Arcadium (thanks to Jurjen).

13/24 songs on the Stadium Arcadium CD:

1. Desecration Smile
2. Ready Made
3. For The 21st Century
4. Tell Me Baby
5. Only 18
6. Especially Michigan
7. Charlie
8. Stadium Arcadium
9. Dani California
10. Hard To Concentrate
11. Snow
12. Animal Bar
13. Wet Sand

* top four songs have been performed live already

It’s finally official. According to NME, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 9th full-length studio album, Stadium Arcadium, will hit the stores on Monday, 8th May. And, according to sources close to the band, that date is for UK-only, while the release date for USA will be 9th May. Release dates for other countries are not known yet, but they’re probably going to be announced according to the weekday when the new releases are out, and that varies from country to country, mind you.

The album was meant to be a 38-songs trilogy, but it will be a 24-songs double LP instead. It will be perceded by the first single, “Dani California” and some other tracks on it are “Snow”, “Animal Bar”, “Wet Sand”, “Charlie”, “Hard To Concentrate” and one of the songs which has made its debut on the 2004 Bridgeschool Benefit, “Desecration Smile”.

And what does Stadium Arcadium mean?
Here’s what Anthony Kiedis said to the above mentioned magazine:
‘Stadium Arcadium’, in the end it has a very dreamlike feeling of we on Earth reflecting the cosmos on the heavens, and we on Earth reflecting it because that’s where our inspiration comes from. It’s more romance of sound or whatever retarded passions exist in your soul. It’s kind of a romantic affair.

According to the Q Magazine and NME, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album, Stadium Arcadium will be different than the 2002’s By The Way, as it’s going to be much heavier and since all the band members contributed to it equaly this time.

The new single from the upcoming album will be released early in 2006 and it’s going to be titled “Dani California”, refering to the very same “Dani the girl” from the 2002 worldwide-hit By The Way.

The release date of the album is still unclear, though some online sellers scheduled it for 8th May 2006 (UK) and 9th May 2006 (USA).