Every time the Red Hot Chili Peppers played the Netherlands

The list starts at the Effenaar in Eindhoven and ends in a sold-out park with more than 60,000 people. We compared setlist.fm, the fan-run RHCP Live Archive, the Dutch festival site Festivalinfo and the tour pages on Wikipedia. A show only made it onto this page if at least two of those sources list it.

The eighties: clubs and the first Pinkpop

In February 1988 the band played three nights in a row: the Effenaar in Eindhoven (18 February), Tivoli in Utrecht (19 February) and Paradiso in Amsterdam (20 February).

On 23 May 1988 came their first Pinkpop, held on the Draf- en Renbaan racecourse in Landgraaf. Guitarist Hillel Slovak was still in the band. He died a little over a month later, on 25 June 1988.

On 26 August 1989 the band, now with John Frusciante and Chad Smith, played Dam Square in Amsterdam during the Uitmarkt festival.

1990: seven Dutch dates

Touring Mother's Milk, the band covered a lot of the country:

Villa 65 was the radio villa of Dutch broadcaster VPRO. That performance counts towards the 28, though it was not a regular concert.

From Ahoy to the Goffertpark

From the nineties on, the venues got bigger. Rotterdam Ahoy became the regular stop.

Little is known about the 2001 show at the Jaarbeurs. Three archives list it, without a tour name or a setlist.

The Goffertpark: three nights in Nijmegen

The Goffertpark in Nijmegen has become the band's Dutch home. On 24 June 2007, 60,468 people came, with Dirty Pretty Things and Mickey Avalon opening. In 2012 Tinariwen and Triggerfinger opened. On 10 June 2022 the park sold out again, with more than 60,000 people. It was the first Dutch show since Frusciante rejoined the band at the end of 2019.

Five times Pinkpop

No Dutch festival has a longer Chili Peppers history than Pinkpop: 1988, 1990, 2006, 2016 and 2023. On 18 June 2023 the band closed the Sunday. They were also booked for 2020, with Frusciante back on guitar. That edition and the postponed 2021 edition were both cancelled.

After 2023

The Unlimited Love Tour ended on 30 July 2024 in the United States. The band has not played the Netherlands since. Whether they will come back is tracked in are the Red Hot Chili Peppers coming to the Netherlands in 2026 or 2027? Curious which of these nights became legendary? Read the 10 best Red Hot Chili Peppers live moments.

Conclusion

Twenty-eight Dutch shows, from the Effenaar to a sold-out Goffertpark. If you saw the band in a small room, you were there in 1988 or 1990. You can still hear these songs in a small room: on 12 December we play Soos Plock, the venue of our very first show. Then test yourself with the quiz on the Chili Peppers live in the Netherlands.

De Peppers editorial team

Written by the editors at De Peppers, the Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band from Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. Every fact is sourced at the bottom of the piece. Spotted a mistake? Email info@mia-automation.com and we will check it.

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