If you've been on the internet the last few days, you've heard about the "controversy" that Flea was caught with his bass completely unplugged during the Super Bowl. Much like the dumb controversy with Machine Head using fake amps, these are tired and true tricks that have been used in the entertainment business since the beginning of time.
As its been explained a million times, the reason for bands playing the Super Bowl to play to pre-recorded tracks is because each minute is worth millions of dollars, and the Bowl crew have to assemble a stage, get the band on the stage, and disassemble the stage all within 25 minutes. There is no time for an audio fuck up, so they avoid it entirely.
This whole thing got so blown out of proportion that Flea had to make a statement "admitting" to doing something every artist who played the Super Bowl has done. An excerpt:
We take our music playing seriously, it is a sacred thing for us, and anyone who has ever seen us in concert (like the night before the Super Bowl at the Barclays Center), knows that we play from our heart, we improvise spontaneously, take musical risks, and sweat blood at every show. We have been on the road for 31 years doing it.
So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it. We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell.
Ok, great, we can move on right?
NOPE!! Not until Axl Rose, somebody who might be better off playing to a backing track, had to get a good jab in by writing a guest op-ed for Billboard. The best part:
So consider that maybe sometime before their actual performance that rather than use a guitar cord or standard wireless, that in the name of science and for all mankind Flea courageously had a newly invented breakthrough in microchip technology installed in his ass that picked up the frequencies of his bass and transmitted them to his amplifier.
Maybe they all had microchips installed in their asses and not only pick up the frequencies of their instruments but get Direct TV and the internet too! Like Google Glass… Google Ass! They could be "Scientific Pioneers!" Like Buzz Aldrin and shit! True (pardon the pun)ASS-tro-nots! Or like Superbowl crash test dummies for bands kinda like those cars that drive themselves!
Ok, you got us, that was a pretty great burn!
What's even funnier is he signed the op-ed "Ax"… because Axl was too long.
