Red Hot Chili Peppers enthrall packed house at Darien Lake

The Red Hot Chili Peppers hit the stage hot at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on a steamy Saturday night with an instrumental jam that featured Flea's funky slap baselines, Chad Smith's pounding beat, and John Frusciante's sizzling fretwork.

Then Anthony Kiedis took the stage and kicked things up a notch.

The LA-based punk/funk band ran through 18 songs on the night, both hits and deep tracks, pulling material from most of their 13 studio albums released since 1984, including Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, Stadium Arcadium, and their two most recent releases, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen.

"Eddie" is Frusciante's tribute to one of his guitar heroes, Eddie Van Halen, and it is a standout track on Dream Canteen. From the same album, they also played "Carry Me Home." From Unlimited Love, they featured the opening track "Black Summer" and Kliedis's name-dropping ode to the LA music scene of his youth, "Aquatic Mouth Dance," which opens with one of Flea's greatest bass riffs.

Reliable fan favorites in the set included "Suck My Kiss" and "Californication."

The Peppers also included two covers of the Ramones: "I Remember You" and "Havana Affair."

The biggest hits, "Under the Bridge" and "Give It Away," were saved for the encore.

The opener on Friday was LA-based psychedelic rock band Wand, which is currently on tour supporting its fifth studio album, Vertigo. 

Singer and lead guitarist Cory Hanson, with a David Byrne-like wiryness, is an impressive musician and strong presence on stage. Unfortunately, the set was marred by a poor mix.  The bass guitar and kick drum dominated and overwhelmed everything else coming from the stage, making the mix muddled and suppressing most sense of melody from the songs. That's a shame because a check of a couple of the band's releases indicates they strike the right tone to potentially win over Chili Pepper fans.