Californication complete

With the shadowboxing and half-raps of Anthony Kiedis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of the most original and successful acts in modern music, reaching their commercial and creative peak now two decades in. Without him, Rolling Stone-certified guitar god John Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith are an unrivaled power trio, face-melting frenetic virtuosity from all ends.

Tuesday night at the sold-out AT&T Center in San Antonio, the Peppers balanced these parallel universes - Mars and Jupiter - traveling through their double album, Stadium Arcadium, with multiple stops in the golden state ("Dani California," "Californication"), while exhibiting a modern take on "How the West Was Won" with several 7-minute to 15-minute instrumental excursions grounded by Smith's thunderous Bonzo bang.

Boldly snubbing What Hits!?, the quartet passed over a few "Best Of" collections' worth of hit singles ("Under the Bridge," "Suck My Kiss," "Aeroplane," "Around the World") in favor of choice rarities.

From 2003's We're a Happy Family - A Tribute to the Ramones, the quartet gave a funky face-lift to "Havana Affair" before delivering a ZZ Top-inspired, Texas-sized boogie with "Nobody Weird like Me," circa Mother's Milk.

Other highlights included the sensory overload of "Throw Away Your Television" and the double-shot encore of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, via "I Could Have Lied" and "Give It Away."

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