After a blazing finale from Kanye West on Saturday, the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers hoped to end the three day festival with a show to impress new and old fans alike. What the fans got in the final performance of the festival was an 80 minute set, heavily leaning on new material, with just a smattering of the band’s hits for the fans to enjoy.

With lead singer Anthony Kiedis wearing his stage outfit from his last tour, and the always crazy bassist Flea suited up in a very flamboyant outfit of his own, the group opened the night with the By The Way track “Cant Stop”, which had the fans nodding and singing along but growing ever so weary from the long weekend.

The current hit single “Dani California” got the early set treatment, in which guitarist John Frusciante wailed away like the crazed instrumental genius he is. Hits were scattered throughout the set, but not as many as there should have been. After hammering through the 1999 smash ballad “Scar Tissue”, the band descending into a lot of new material from their Stadium Arcadium album.

Even though tunes like “Tell Me Baby”, and “Snow (Hey Oh)” came off well in the set, most of the set focused on the newer material, and left fans puzzled and waiting for the hits. One pleasant surprise was the group’s inclusion of the early Chili Pepper funk-rock jam “Me and My Friends”, which would have satisfied the older fans of the group, but maybe not the fans that latched onto the band in the past 6-8 years or so.

The crowd seemed to join in singing in unison to one of the band’s cornerstone hits, “Give It Away”, as the crowd around the stage began to swell big time. By the time the band reached the title track from the “By The Way” album, many people were already starting to head out of the park, and beat the massive crowds on their way.

Kiedis and the Chili Peppers are still one of my favorite bands of all time, and I have always enjoyed them. But as most bands do on the opening night of their tours, the Chilis are road testing new material. Some of the new material works, some doesn’t work as well. Somewhere in many people’s minds, they were still waiting for the bands to play the hits that they wanted to hear. That, or they were waiting for Kanye West to come back on…