RHCP Super Bowl Performance Scandal

So the Super Bowl was this past weekend. Not that I follow football or anything, but this game, in particular, has some musical significance. Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Not a likely pairing; I was certainly skeptical. But they managed to put on a good show. And it was a lot more of a live show than I can ever remember seeing on the Super Bowl stage. There was energy and music and it played a lot like a concert. It wasn’t some theatrical performance void of musical soul. Both acts are great performers and they came together well.

But, as always, there’s more to the story. At first, I didn’t see it. I was watching the game on an old TV in a hotel room, so the resolution wasn’t great and, really, I was there to snowboard, not to watch some dumb football game. So I was only passively watching. Though I was more attentive during the halftime show…

Eventually someone had to point it out to me (I think it was the next day or later that night): RHCP wasn’t plugged in. As in, their instruments were visibly not plugged into ANYTHING. They were miming the whole thing; the vocals were the only musical part that was real!

Naturally, the internet went crazy. What a scandal!

But, not to rehash a story you’ve probably already read, eventually Flea, the bassist for RHCP, issued a statement to their fans: http://redhotchilipeppers.com/news/454-a-message-from-flea.

Basically, they didn’t want to mime it, but they weren’t given an option; it was mime it or don’t play the Super Bowl. They wanted to play the Super Bowl, so they decided to mime it as transparently as possible (while still being professionals and not mocking the concept); without any type of cover. So you could clearly see that they were playing unplugged; they weren’t trying to hide it.

Now as a musician, I’m torn.

On one hand, I wouldn’t want to fake playing. It would feel wrong and as a musician, it seems like it would cheapen the experience. I know that it’s a fairly common thing to do for everything from music videos to TV appearances, but it’s still fake.

On the other hand, it’s the experience of a lifetime. Can you blame someone for that? The Super Bowl will never be host to a percussive fingerstyle guitarist, or any other experimental guitarist, so I don’t have to worry about ever having to make a decision of that magnitude. And I’m not a huge football fan, so I can’t relate to that. But knowing that RHCP are football fans and that they were given the opportunity, there at least was someone who had to make that call.

I think that you’re left with two viable options:

One option would be to turn down the offer and expose the NFL organizers for trying to cheapen your music. It’d get good press and would bring to light this sort of practice. When you get that level of corporate meddling, it’s distasteful. They don’t have the football game pre-planned, telling players how they should perform. Can’t you trust a professional musician to be a professional musician?

The other option is what RHCP did. You play the gig. It is, after all, once in a lifetime. But, you play it transparently; you don’t try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

I think if you do anything else, you discredit yourself. Whether your fans know it or not; it’s about integrity. Whether you get caught or not, it’s principal. How many singers have had their careers tainted by lip synching mishaps? It alienates your fans, sending the message that you truly have sold your soul.

So you make it blatantly obvious that you’ve been forced to fake it. In doing so, you can transfer that distrust to the organization that put you in that position. And if you can’t say no to the opportunity, then that’s your best option. Make people back your decision and make them question the organizers.

Sure, it sucks that they had to play to a recording. Since I know I’ll never be faced with that situation, I’m not going to think about whether I would’ve done the same or not. But I support their decision in the way they chose to make it.

And I hope there’s fallout on the organizers for this. You don’t do that to a real musician.

What do you think?