janesaddiction.org

Dayton Daily News (OH)
May 15, 1991
Edition: CITY
Section: LIFESTYLE
Page: 5C

JANE'S MAKES BREAKING UP HARD TO DO
Author: Dave Larsen MUSIC CRITIC

How does a band follow-up its most successful album and first arena tour?

If that band is Jane's Addiction, it announces that it intends to break-up by early 1992.

Judging by Jane's set at Hara Arena Tuesday night, if the end is imminent, then the band plans to go out with a bang instead of a whimper.

The Los Angeles-based four-piece psycho-funk metal band played with uninhibited abandon during its hour and 20 minute set.

Singer Perry Farrell, shorn of his bleached-blond dreadlocks in favor a close-cropped cut, moved in a herky-jerky manner, like a marionette recently freed from its strings as he shrieked and whined his way through the songs. Guitarist Dave Navarro and bassist Eric Avery both went shirtless and wore shorts, and like the band's sound, were tough and lean.

The reason for their choice of clothing (Farrell, too, quickly stripped down to slacks and suspenders) became clear as the floor - which was filled to capacity - soon became a sweaty slam pit. People were passed overhead while others pogoed in time to the furious funk groove and thrash guitar of Standing in the Shower Thinking.

Farrell, who drained a bottle of wine during breaks between songs, seemed strangely at home amid the religious artifacts and icons that festooned the stage, which was lit by candles and carnival lights. He slurred his speech during his several asides to the audience, but immersed himself totally in the seven-minute opus, Three Days, which was propelled by drummer Stephen Perkins' polyrhythmic percussion.

Perkins also punctuated the blistering beat of the band's best-known song, Been Caught Stealing, with quickly improvised flourishes as Farrell took liberties with the lyrics and Avery and Navarro played fast and loose.

Jane's Addiction closed its set with the speed-funk frenzy of Stop! and after a lengthy break in which battle-weary fans began making their way off the floor, returned for a single encore of Summertime Rolls.

"I got a reason for living in the summertime," Farrell told the crowd during one of the encore's slower, more melodic lulls, and Jane's Addiction, in its superbly decadent splendor, has a reason to stay together.

Opening act the Rollins Band featured one of rock's more intensely frightening individuals - former Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins. With a sunburst tattoo bearing the words "Search and Destroy" covering his entire bare back, Rollins hunched over and spat out his lyrics in a crouch, swaying like a cobra that was ready to strike.

The band's sound was something along the lines of Black Flag meets Black Sabbath - heavy hardcore with meaty chunks of metal.