Photo by DYLAN LONG
Jane’s Addiction is plumbing its history — and the latent demon of nostalgia — by touring the nation, playing each and every track of its first studio album “Nothing’s Shocking,” the 1988 album that helped the band graduate from L.A. scenesters to legitimate international alternative stars. It’d be easy to say that Jane’s, at least this incarnation, has aged about as gracefully as the music industry itself, but that’d be a lie. What transpired on Saturday night at the Electric Factory was, in fact, a snapshot of a band — its historical record firmly rooted — gleefully returning the recorded work that help cultivate the loyal following that so resoundingly turned out to hear the now-platinum-certified album played in its entirety, a lack of smoke machines be damned. While time has dulled many artists, sullying their musicianship and singing ability, it’s not been a relevator to Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, percussionist Stephen Perkins and bassist Chris Chaney. If anything, Navarro’s frenetic and precision-focused playing is even sharper than his apex on his work with the band in the late 1980s and 1990s, while Farrell’s stage presence is just as dynamic and questing as it was on the inaugural Lollapolooza back in ’91. At Electric Factory, the band plowed through “Nothing’s Shocking,” hitting all the right notes with an energy and enthusiasm that was as boundless as the all-ages crowd (which skewed toward the 30s, 40s, mostly). From the shimmering streams of “Up the Beach” to the crowd singing along “sex is violent” on “Ted, Just Admit It” to the swirl of “Jane Says,” this is a band comfortable with itself, its music and its performance. Farrell remained engaging and defiant, demanding more “80s smoke” and, failing to get it, urging the crowd to smoke more weed to create it (they did) as he opined and lectured and fulminated on music’s crazy new dynamics and fleeting etherealness. But, as those realized, when a band’s got staying power, any such concern is muted, but not turned down. Not for Jane’s Addiction. Its got energy to spare, desire and drive. — MATT MOORE
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Being one of approximately three teenagers at the Electric Factory last night, I found myself surrounded by a mixture of kids attending their first rock show with their fathers at their sides, a slew of photographers wielding cameras with lenses which closely resemble the cost of my yearly college tuition, and drunken rockers left and right saluting the almighty Jane’s Addiction. The experimental metal band Sannhet first took the stage to warm things up with their eerie, 100% instrumental musical sludge. Strange filtered strobes bathed the trio in flickering light while their slow build ups continually exploded into epic and precise channellings of rage. They powered through a set that sounded like the soundtrack to a nightmare, filling up every inch of the air with lush yet hellish riffs, slipping in various loud samples and loops only to have them crushed underfoot by ridiculously loud drum fills. A full hour after Sannhet finished off their rampage, and a half-hour after the set was slated to begin, Jane’s Addiction finally took the stage and commenced their excursion through the Nothing’s Shocking, their iconic 1988 debut, from beginning to end. Farrell was beautifully animated, seemingly 20 years younger than his age in his energy, smile and voice. At one point, two babes in bikinis were suspended above the band, connected to the rope by suspension hooks seemingly pierced in their backs, evoking a sideshow-esque vibe that actually made the night that much more entertaining. All in all, Jane’s Addiction put on a performance worthy of a legendary band and made a lasting impression for all the kiddies who were brought out to dip their toes in the live rock & roll experience. — DYLAN LONG
