Some nights, the setlist is the story. On October 17, the Red Hot Chili Peppers walked into the Hollywood Palladium and pulled songs from storage that hadn’t seen daylight in 26 years. “Organic Anti-Beat Box Band” from 1987’s The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. “Blackeyed Blonde” from 1985’s Freaky Styley. Both reportedly unplayed live since 2000. Both recorded during the period when founding guitarist Hillel Slovak was still alive. Slovak died in 1988, but inside that room, his absence felt like a presence — woven into every bass-driven riff the band resurrected.
Music Education Was the Reason. History Was the Reward.
The Silverlake Conservatory’s 25th anniversary turned a charity night into an unexpected reckoning with the band’s origin story.
The occasion was the Silverlake Conservatory of Music’s 25th anniversary benefit — the nonprofit school co-founded by Flea and touring musician Keith “Tree” Barry. Comedian Marc Maron hosted. Dave Grohl and Vince Staples also performed. What had traditionally been a private fundraiser went public this year, pulling a full-scale bill into a venue where the stage and the audience felt genuinely close. Proceeds supported the conservatory’s music-education programs — fitting context for a night when the band revisited its own earliest lessons.
What the Setlist Actually Said
Eleven songs charted a course from instrumental warm-up through deep catalogue territory and back to the present.
The set opened with an instrumental jam and closed with “Give It Away.” In between, the real work:
- “Organic Anti-Beat Box Band” and “Blackeyed Blonde” — both from the Slovak era, reportedly their first live performances since 2000
- “Nevermind” (Freaky Styley) — first time John Frusciante performed it with the band since 1992
- Frusciante delivered a solo rendition of Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” — setlist records identify it as his first performance of the song in connection with the Chili Peppers since 2007
- Current-era material — “Black Summer,” “Eddie,” “Whatchu Thinkin’,” and “Can’t Stop” — balanced the night against the archival weight of the Slovak-era tracks
Frusciante playing a Carole King ballad alone onstage at a Chili Peppers show sounds like a fever dream until the moment it actually happens — and then it makes complete sense.
Grohl, His Daughter, and a Gerry Rafferty Deep Cut
Dave Grohl’s seven-song set extended the evening’s spirit of musical community across generations.
Dave Grohl’s set brought “Times Like These,” “My Hero,” and a cover of Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street.” His daughter Violet joined him onstage. Foo Fighters members appeared alongside him. The whole night operated that way — established artists pulling in people they love, music moving freely between generations and eras.
That spirit is the Silverlake Conservatory’s entire purpose. It also explains why “Organic Anti-Beat Box Band” surfaced after 26 years of silence: certain songs don’t retire, they simply wait for the right room. Rooms like that, nights like that, don’t schedule themselves twice.
