The Riverside Ballroom, Green Bay, Wisconsin. November 26, 1989: the Red Hot Chili Peppers stroll quietly into the ballroom and sneak a look around. The crowd is fairly small, strangely restless, buzzing and hurting for relief from the sexual frustrations of a Midwestern farm town winter. Perfect. For the first time on the Mother’s Milk tour, the Chilis decide to give them the sock. Backstage, tour manager Mark Johnson produces a fresh pack of white tube socks. The Chilis rush from the cold dressing room into the friendly, swarming heat of the auditorium wearing tennis shoes, hats and the socks stretched over their cocks - a costume they save these days for stifled places like Green Bay. The Chilis rear back and launch into “Out in L.A,” the traditional show-opener of a band thick with rituals. The crowd erupts in an ass-grabbing frenzy. Too-sexy, 19-year-old guitarist John Frusciante lays back, stretching his washboard stomach, his shoulders hunched, the Jimmy Page smirk on his lips. Singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea are simply a blur, a pair of martial arts contenders gone mad, Flea’s eyes glowing green and his tightly-wrapped skull shining. Given the intensity of the onstage fray, the Chili Peppers are only tempting fate. Eventually, one of those socks has to fly off. Well into the set, jazz horn virtuoso and childhood homeboy Keith Chapman Barry - known only as Tree - joins the Peppers onstage. During his sax solo Tree’s sock almost immediately falls off - but, a true Chili, he “rocks out with his cock out” and finishes the song. There is no way to salvage the crowd. Boys are doffing their shirts. Virgins are crying. Guitar roadie and backup singer Robbie Allen darts onstage and “does a helicopter with his dick” right in the spotlight. We have, indeed, come a long way since Jim Morrison. From: https://www.spin.com/featured/red-hot-chili-peppers-mothers-milk-1990-cover-story-physical-graffiti/
