Jane’s Addiction Show Ends When Perry Farrell Punches Dave Navarro
A Jane’s Addiction concert in Boston last night ended abruptly when singer Perry Farrell shoved and then punched guitarist Dave Navarro onstage during a performance of the band’s classic “Ocean Size.”
The band’s crew, along with bass player Eric Avery, subdued Farrell. JamBase shared video of the incident on Twitter.
Jane’s Addiction: A Tumultuous Week
This incident comes at the end of a roller-coaster week for the band. They played two shows at New York City’s Pier 17 rooftop club on Tuesday, September 10, and Wednesday, September 11. The shows were wildly different.
I attended the show on September 11; during the September 10 show, I started receiving texts and seeing social posts from friends who were at that concert. Every post expressed anger and/or disappointment at the band’s performance. Or, more specifically, Perry Farrell’s. One friend texted me a video, saying, “Voice not great and he seems completely trashed.” Another, who brought his son to the show, said, “I am trying to explain to my son that I’ve never seen anything like this. So many shows, never.”
Friends also reported that the other band members looked visibly annoyed with Farrell throughout the performance. Farrell told the audience that he was having vocal problems and the show ended abruptly.
I went to Pier 17 on Wednesday with some hesitancy, as Jane’s Addiction is one of my favorite bands. In my opinion, they are one of the most important bands of the past four decades. I’ve written op-eds about why they should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I didn’t see them before their initial breakup in 1991, but I’ve seen them frequently since they got back together in 1997, and they’ve never let me down. And there’s always a sense of danger: you feel like you never know what Perry is going to do next. Dave and drummer Stephen Perkins are always incredible and they sound powerful with whoever is on bass (I’ve seen them with Avery, Flea, and most frequently with Chris Chaney). I didn’t want to see a show that would let me down.
Shockingly, Wednesday night’s show was amazing. Navarro/Avery/Perkins are as powerful as any instrumentalists I’ve ever seen. Perry has never been a great singer in the classic sense, but he’s one of the best frontmen that I’ve ever experienced. At least, that’s true on a good night (I’ve seen some subpar Farrell performances in his non-Jane’s concerts). Wednesday was a pretty good night. He pulled it together enough so that he didn’t ruin the show. His stories between songs rambled a bit, but they always do. He drank from a wine bottle throughout the night and seemed drunk but was relatively coherent. He even broke up a fight in the audience during “Stop!”
Jane’s Addiction recently released a new song, “Imminent Redemption.” It’s their first new song with the founding lineup since 1991. Hopefully, the song’s title will prove prescient and there will be some redemption for Farrell, with both the fans and with his bandmates.
UPDATE: Etty Lau Farrell, Perry’s wife, posted to Instagram, sharing her take on the scuffle. “Clearly there had been a lot of tension and animosity between the members.. the magic that made the band so dynamic. Well, the dynamite was lit. Perry got up in Dave’s face and body checked him,” she said. She said that the reason for the tensions was disagreements over the sound mix, which was affecting Perry’s tinnitus. “Perry’s frustration had been mounting, night after night, he felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band. Perry had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat every night. But when the audience in the first row, started complaining up to Perry cussing at him that the band was planning too loud and that they couldn’t hear him, Perry lost it.”
She didn’t blame Navarro, but seems to be angry at Eric Avery: “While Dave was keeping Perry at arm’s length to de-escalate the situation. Dan [a crew member] rushed over to de-escalate as well by holding Perry back. Dave walked away to take his guitar off. Eric walked up to Perry, upstage, in the dark, behind Dan, put Perry in a headlock and punched him in the stomach three times. Kevin, crewmember with a long hair… pulled Eric away. Then Eric nonchalant walked off to the front of the stage to apologize to audience for the show ended early… Dave still looked handsome and cool in the middle of a fight. Perry was a crazed beast for the next half an hour – he finally did not calm down, but did breakdown and cried and cried. Eric, well he either didn’t understand what descalation meant or took advantage of the situation and got in a few cheap shots on Perry.”
UPDATE: The band announced via social media that they are canceling their concert in Bridgeport, CT, on Sunday night. No announcements have been made regarding the remainder of the tour.
