Porno For Pyros - August 09, 1993 - Entertainment Hall, Florida State Fairgrounds, Tampa, FL

Date: August 09, 1993
Location: Entertainment Hall, Florida State Fairgrounds, Tampa, FL
Recorded: Audio
Status: Confirmed
Type: Concert
Lineup: Perry Farrell
Stephen Perkins
Martyn Lenoble
Peter DiStefano
Artwork:
 

Setlist:

Orgasm
Sadness
Meija
Bad Shit
Tonight
Cursed Female
Cursed Male
Pets
Dominator
Packin' .25
Black Girlfriend
Porno For Pyros (encore)

Show Information:

Rev. Horton Heat opened.

The Tampa Tribune
August 6, 1993
Edition: FINAL
Section: FRIDAY EXTRA!
Page: 20

Perry's still shocking with Porno
Author: Philip Booth

"RITUAL DE LO Habitual," the second major-label album from psychedelic art rockers Jane's Addiction, had just sold half a million copies, and the Los Angeles band was designated headliner on the debut Lollapalooza tour in 1991. Perry Farrell, the band's front man and chief Lollapalooza architect, chose just that moment to allow the band to self-destruct.

Internal conflict, with Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins on one side and guitarist Dave Navarro and bassist Eric Avery on the other, was blamed for the split.

"I don't hang around where I'm not wanted," Farrell told the Los Angeles Times. "I just knew that I couldn't conceive of playing indefinitely with people I don't get along with.

"We weren't getting along to the point that nobody was listening to musical ideas."

Farrell, wasting little time, last year resurfaced with Porno For Pyros, which released its debut four months ago.

Porno, a kind of newfangled Jane's (on board is drummer Perkins and new pals Martyn Le Noble on bass and Peter DiStefano on guitar) with similar song-structure oddities and controversial lyrics, plays the Florida State Fairgrounds on Monday.

"The essence of what we do is we're musicians," Farrell said about his new band. "In the '60s there were musicians and that's all that there was.

"And now there's dancers and there's video and there's lip-syncers and there's all this other (expletive).

"It doesn't necessarily mean music's getting any better. I have a feeling that it's really hurting it. We're all aware of that."

Rev. Horton Heat, a psychedelic, hard-edged rockabilly act on the Sub Pop label, will open the show.

Tickets, $17.50, are available at the door and at Ticketmaster outlets, which will add a service charge. For more information, call (813) 287-8844.

St. Petersburg Times
August 9, 1993
Edition: CITY
Section: TAMPA BAY AND STATE
Page: 6B

Fiery Pyros unbound
Author: RICHARD CROMELINLos Angeles Times

Perry Farrell has turned his back on the restaurant table and buried his nose in a rock fanzine as his two new bandmates, guitarist Peter DiStefano and bassist Martyn Le Noble, sit beside him and try to describe the pressures that come with being the successors to Farrell's old band, Jane's Addiction.

"The expectations of the world, yeah, I feel it in my stomach," says DiStefano, 26. "People have high expectations. Like our first show, it's like everybody's already there checking us out. We wanted to feel what it was like to party and have a good time and be a little loose."

"Instead," says Le Noble, 22, "we got reviewed by Rolling Stone."

Farrell suddenly lowers his magazine and turns to the musicians.

"What you've got to do is, you just got to get oblivious. You guys aren't gonna get a natural growth," he says, in the tones of a firm but supportive father. "It's not fair - Rolling Stone shouldn't have been there reviewing you, but they were, so don't read it."

Farrell sounds almost like a manager, which is no small shock since he and managers have a history roughly like that of the Balkan states. This paternal persona - and his recent fame as the entrepreneurial spearhead of the annual Lollapalooza tour - is something new for the singer, whose reputation was built not only on the exotic rock music of Jane's Addiction, but also on his role as a volatile rock rebel.

Though Jane's Addiction released just two major-label albums and never quite made its commercial breakthrough, Farrell's new band, Porno for Pyros, has quite a legacy to live up to.

Jane's Addiction's blend of metal, psychedelia and art rock was a challenging and invigorating hybrid-jarring sound - dreamy, intimate and majestic. Fronting it with a raspy wail and kamikaze recklessness, Farrell exhibited a naked emotionalism and a confrontational manner that made him a symbol of freedom and fearlessness.

Part shaman and part jester, he conducted tours of the extremes, and though his detractors saw him as a showboat with a knack for self-promotion, when all was said and done, he really did mean it.

"Most people would say they want to be in a great band or a famous band," Farrell says. "To me, famous doesn't mean (expletive). Being important is what counts. When I retire or die or get thrown out of this whole thing, I want to leave behind a great body of work. That's all that matters. Reputation is bull I want to get to work now."

Sitting in slanting sunlight at a table the band has cluttered with full ashtrays, Pez candy dispensers and the remains of lunch during an afternoon of interviews, Farrell looks older than his 34 years and wears the signs of hard living in his drawn, lined features.

These days, Farrell might be better known with young fans for his role with the annual Lollapalooza festival than for the long-disbanded Jane's Addiction: The final Jane's Addiction tour was also the first Lollapalooza, a carnival setting and power-packed musical lineup designed to fulfill one of Farrell's passions: making the concert experience "special."

His approach was inspired by the underground concerts presented in L.A.'s art and music scene by the promoters called Theoretical and by Desolation Center's ambitious stagings of such assault bands as Einsturzende Neubauten and Sonic Youth in remote desert locations.

"They were really different and interesting," Farrell says. "Those guys really mixed and matched. The spirit of Lollapalooza came from those days way back when, when the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets played on some ship that cruised in the San Pedro Harbor.

"Those shows, that's where I cut my teeth. When I got into this business on a major level, I thought it'd be exciting. Every kid wants to do that, but I was bored."

After dismantling Jane's Addiction, Farrell's next move was to form Porno for Pyros, hanging on to drummer Perkins and enlisting DiStefano, whom he met on a surfing trip to Mexico, and Le Noble, a snaggletoothed Dutchman who had played with L.A. band Thelonious Monster for two years.

Farrell knew just what he was after.

"Rock 'n' roll has a problem these days where the players overplay because they have something to prove," he says. "They're trying to outdo each other like it's a physical thing, like it's an Olympic event. Think about a great Bob Marley song. The simplicity of it, but it's a complete song, and you feel complete afterward. You don't go, "Wow, the guitar player ripped,' or "The drummer was rad.' It's a song. To me, that's timeless, and that's what I'm after, working with Porno. I've been after that for a long time. I feel like I'm getting closer all the time."

"He's definitely a much happier person," drummer Perkins, 25, says of his longtime partner. "I think he's happiest when he can concentrate only on music. We're making more music right now than we ever did with Jane's."

With Porno for Pyros' debut release out, Farrell is so focused on the music that he has scaled back the ambitious art pieces and video projects that used to attend each Jane's Addiction record.

"The essence of what we do is we're musicians," he says. "In the '60s, there were musicians, and that's all that there was, and now there's dancers, and there's video, and there's lip-syncers, and there's all this other (expletive). It doesn't necessarily mean music's getting any better. I have a feeling that it's really hurting it. We're all aware of that.

"We're staying really busy creatively. Sparks are flying everywhere. That's what my life is all about."

8 p.m. today at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. Tickets $17.50.

St. Petersburg Times
August 10, 1993
Edition: CITY
Section: TAMPA BAY AND STATE
Page: 6B

Farrell's band has ignition
Author: RICK GERSHMAN

Monday night at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa.

The future looked dim to fans of alternative-rock icon Perry Farrell the last time he performed in Central Florida, on the Lollapalooza Tour in Orlando.

Farrell was the guiding force of Jane's Addiction, one of the first ""alternative'' rock bands to receive mainstream success without major musical concessions. The Orlando show was one of the groundbreaking band's last performances; Farrell disbanded the group.

Monday night, the musician-filmmaker-activist returned to prove the end of Jane's Addiction wasn't the end of him. At the Florida State Fairgrounds, Farrell unleashed a new band that was as different and exciting as its name - Porno for Pyros.

Ex-Jane's drummer Stephen Perkins joins Farrell in the new group, which retained a sound very similar to Jane's despite the new additions of Pete DiStefano on guitar and Martyn LeNoble on bass.

The group opened with Orgasm, the final song on its debut album. Bathed in purple and green lights with a ballerina dancing across the stage, it was a benign opening that belied the oncoming fury.

Porno for Pyros ripped through three more songs - Sadness, Meija and Bad S--- - in rapid succession, the energy level heightening with each song, as Farrell stripped down to leather pants.

But it wasn't until Cursed Female that the set turned into a literal circus of questionable taste that let the band live up to its name. On a raised stage behind the performers, two women stripped to bikinis, then caressed and slid across each other.

Cursed Male followed and the depraved-carnival atmosphere continued through several more songs.

Any idea that can even remotely be considered original is a godsend in pop music these days, so opening band Rev. Horton Heat deserves credit for its curious mix of trash metal and rockabilly. The trio, part of Seattle's now-famous independent Sub Pop label, sounded like a hybrid of Helmet with the Stray Cats.

That made for some intriguing melodies flowing over a churning rhythm section straight out of Metallica - though in a nod to tradition, the bass player plucked, maniacally, on an acoustic bass. Unfortunately, the heavier tunes were indistinguishable and quickly became monotonous by the end of the 45-minute set.