A Day With The Red Hot Chili Peppers- Gail Hersh ’87

My very aged and foggy recollection of the events is this: For some context, this not long after the Chili Peppers released “Freaky Styley.” Hillel (Slovak) was just re-joining the group, and Cliff (Martinez) was still playing drums, though he left the band shortly after.  I played the crud out of that album on my show on WKCO, particularly “Jungle Man.”  This was a crazy Send Off.  People were partying really hard and had taken off by the time the Red Hot Chili Peppers got on stage.  There were even a few people passed out on the quad. 

After playing for about 7 or 8 minutes, one of the few people remaining standing but nevertheless a well-inebriated attendee (who, without disparaging the whole fraternity, I believe was a Beta) threw a beer on the stage.  Anthony said, “Hey, you are smart kids.  We get paid the same $10 grand whether we play for 3 hours or 3 minutes.  I know you can do the math!  Next person throws a beer on the stage, we’re out of here.”  Two more beers later, the Chili Peppers walked off the back of the stage.  Because our division was directly behind stage, the bands were hosted in our division’s lounge.  I believe Andy Youngquist, an Alpha Delt, and I were helping with the hosting of the bands. 

During our years, Andy was arranging a lot of the entertainment, and for this Send Off, I volunteered when they polled the WKCO staff for help.  After the band left, the small group of people were booing and yelling, and I escorted with the band up the stairs to the Delta Tau Delta lounge.  Flea was getting progressively pissed and just before the lounge, stepped out onto the window ledge and flicked everyone off.  I vaguely remember he was going to start to pee when I pulled him inside.  So, as a result, I got to hang out with them for about 30-40 minutes in our lounge before they decided to take off.  I think the statute of limitations has certainly run on any of the many things that went on during that time, but those guys used to really party hard.  I got to enjoy partying and talking with them about punk-funk music and LA and a whole lot of other topics.  The guys were refreshingly down to earth while being cool beyond belief.  I was really happy to have had that experience.