NEWS: Behave yourself, don't get smashed and don't act the eejit message for Tennent's Vital ahead of Red Hot Chili Peppers show

WE all enjoy a good rock show, sometimes at the right place, and at the right time excess is not only encouraged, it is almost obligatory, but ahead of this week's Tennent's Vital organisers urged those going to see Red Hot Chili Peppers' Thursday show not to go too far.

At a specially organised press conference on site at the Belfast City Council's Boucher Road Playing Fields all involved stressed that the important message is be responsible and have 'safe fun'. And, there are still some limited number of tickets left from Ticketmaster and the box office on the day...

In what is set to be the biggest ever Tennent's Vital Red Hot Chili Peppers will play in front of nearly 40,000. The next night will see some man standing in front of a lap top and some 'decks' but not our thing since we lost our glow sticks...

But the Chilis are sure to have everyone jumping - and preparations are well underway.

Planning for the logistics for this began back in November and the crew are well on their way to pulling all the elements together, from the stage, PA, toilets, catering...and the RHCP VIP area.

Press conference in front of the stage

Pic by Darren McVeigh,

MetalplanetBelfast 

Event Controller, Paul Scott, took assembled press and photographers on a tour that included the backstage area and on to the massive 30m+ wide stage.

The sheer scale of the event for Belfast was clear as Scott revealed the arena size. "It's 550m by 550m," he said. We're not that good at mathematics, but we calculated this as 'big'.

Like colleagues at Translink he urged people to plan their journey to and from Vital..

"To minimise your journey time please think about public transport," he said. "We are served by the train halt not too far away, and we're also served by a bus service, which will operate to and from the city centre."

Lush artist area backstage.

Pic by Darren McVeigh

MetalplanetBelfast

But the message was also to be fair to nearby residents.

"We would ask all our spectators to come early, respect the people in the area, both coming and leaving."

And, he had a message to those who were thinking of taking excessive booze - don't!

"Please modify your behaviour, because we do not want the enjoyment of the vast majority to be impeded by your selfish actions."

But let's get down to the meat of the matter - Thursday will see RHCP supported by Fall Out Boy, Labrinth and Cage The Elephant.

Errrrr, we were good with RHCP, and we'll tolerate FOB and the other one, but we we don't want to see any animal let alone an elephant in a cage.

The lighting rig ready to go aloft

Pic by Lizzie Torbitt 

Perhaps that is not the case for many of the almost 40,000 who will be there as soon as the gates at four, but for most rockers the case in point is RHCP.

Sure arguably they had their rock heyday when Hillel Slovak was on guitar, but it is John Fruscriante's work on guitar that established the band as rock megastars.

With Chad Smith on drums it is the line-up that continues the vision of Flea and Anthony Keidis in the 80s.

Event Controller Paul Scott

Praying to the weather gods?

Pic by Lizzie Torbitt

Having seen the set-up, we know y'all are in for a tremendous show.

Words by Jonny