Jane's Addiction - October 11, 1988 - Xcess Club, Houston, TX

Date: October 11, 1988
Location: Xcess Club, Houston, TX
Recorded: Audio (audience)
Status: Confirmed
Type: Concert
Lineup: Perry Farrell
Dave Navarro
Stephen Perkins
Eric Avery
Artwork:
 

Setlist:

Whores
Idiots Rule
Pigs In Zen
Ted, Just Admit It...
Mountain Song
Had A Dad
Trip Away
Kettle Whistle
Ocean Size
Chip Away

Show Information:

Jane's opened for Iggy Pop.

Houston Chronicle
OCTOBER 13, 1988
Frenetic Iggy Pop shows upstarts a thing or two
Author: MARTY RACINEStaff

The story line to this review could be: "Young upstarts blow old geezer off the stage!"

But something happened on the way to the passing of the torch Tuesday, when newcomers Jane's Addiction opened for punk godfather Iggy Pop at Xcess. Iggy, the Real Wild Child from Detroit, showed he is not about to relinquish nothin' to nobody.

Touring on his new "Instinct" album, Pop, looking lean and demented as ever, assaulted the big crowd with a non-stop, don't-come-up-for-air rock 'n' roll barrage of more than 90 minutes and two long encores. It was the real Iggy Pop his fans have loved to hate since the early '70s when he powered the Stooges to the brink of despair and destruction and a far cry from the Ig who opened for the Pretenders last year at the Summit in the wake of "Blah Blah Blah".

Jane's Addiction is the latest LA craze and properly controversial in its debut LP, "Nothing's Shocking", for Warner Bros., which won a heated bidding war for Jane's Addiction after the group left its own Triple X label. "Nothing Shocking"'s album art, featuring nude female Siamese twins (human) with their hair afire, has met resistance with some record-store chains who refuse to stock or at least display the product.

Inside, the music is intelligently rendered psycho-metallic rock, ultimately overblown but interestingly situated among the forces of post-punk, psycho-babble, surrealistic pop and heavy metal passing for "hard rock" these days.

Onstage, some of the intrigue and aural flights of fancy were lost, and Jane's Addiction showed its youth by doing little to draw the audience in with a show or dialogue. Perhaps the aloof look is cool these days, but one doesn't have to be an animated phony, either, to warm the proceedings.

They ended on a scattershot, anti-climactic note, failing to wrap up a tidy package, and they barely received an encore.

The set was decent but not the fulfillment of the new album's promise. It is conceivable that they were not suited to this large, impersonal venue. A local promoter is hoping to get them back in December to headline their own show, and they're definitely worth a second look.

Iggy, backed by two guitars, bass and drums and going shirtless with an open vest, came out firing, and when the smoke cleared, the audience was left dazed and spent, especially the guy who kept trying to climb onstage and the guy being passed over the crowd on upstretched arms.

Like the old days, the Real Wild Child's music of venom and vengeance, daring and defiance, angst and alienation, made a direct hit on hypocrisy, laziness and growing up absurd, elevating (or lowering, depending on your perspective) rock 'n' roll into a creed of survival. Rock at that point is enough to save one's soul within this ridiculous existence, and Pop Tuesday indicated he still believes in the music's salvation and necessity. It's a rare sight in the poseur/processed/polished '80s which has all but wrung the urgency out of rock.

"I grew up hating America and did all kinds of drugs for 20 years just to escape it," he admitted. "I wanted to get high all the time. Getting high is still great, but now I get high on you" he pointed to a person in the crowd, "and you, and you." He launched into "High on You".

He raged through four-minute salvos spanning new and old, among the best of which were "Some Weird Sin, Five Foot One, Real Wild Child, Sixteen" and a thundering "Tuff Baby". He closed his regular set with "Search and Destroy", warning the crowd, "I'll wear you out."

That he did, in a first encore alone of "Cold Metal, Squarehead" and a combo of "Dog Food" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog". Still standing in the crowd, however, were Dave Navarro and Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction. They, too, had been checking the old geezer out.