Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea: We mimed playing instruments for the Super Bowl Halftime Show

Many are calling the Bruno Mars/Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Super Bowl Halftime Show one of the best in recent memory. That may be, in large part, because very little was left to chance during the live show.

“When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song Give It Away at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded,” Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist, said in a post for the band’s website. “There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.”

Questions about the show’s authenticity originally arose when some fans noticed electric instruments weren’t even plugged into amps. Flea explained this wasn’t a simple oversight…

“Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrumental track was pre recorded? Of course easily we could have and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend.”

Flea reassured fans this was a one-time exception to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ general ban against miming performances.

“We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it,” Flea said. “We decided that, with Anthony (Kiedis) singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig. I met and spoke with Bruno, who was a beautiful dude, a real talented musician, and we worked out something that seemed like it would be fun.”

All in all, that isn’t a particularly shocking revelation. As Flea noted, there are “a zillion things that could go wrong” during the few minutes available to set up before the massive show goes down. Plus, credit is due to Flea for addressing the questions in such an honest-yet-appreciative manner.