Jane's Addiction - April 23, 1991 - Smith Center, George Washington University, Washington, DC

Date: April 23, 1991
Location: Smith Center, George Washington University, Washington, DC
Recorded: Audio
Status: Confirmed
Type: Concert
Lineup: Perry Farrell
Dave Navarro
Stephen Perkins
Eric Avery
Artwork:
 

Setlist:

Up The Beach
Whores
Standing In The Shower... Thinking
No One's Leaving
Ain't No Right
Three Days
Been Caught Stealing
Idiots Rule
Then She Did...
Mountain Song
Stop!
Summertime Rolls

Show Information:

Thanks go out to Susan Hodges for the ticket scan.

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
APRIL 18, 1991
Edition: 2
Section: M
WASHINGTON WEEKEND
CALENDAR
MUSIC
Page: M18

Addiction's success not gone to its head
Author: Jeff Alan Hewitt; THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Success is becoming a habit for Jane's Addiction.

"Things are great," says guitarist David Navarro. And why shouldn't they be? The Los Angeles hard rockers have been embraced by the music business they scorned to acknowledge during their rise to fame, and their second album on the Warner Bros. label, "Ritual de lo Habitual," has earned them a second Grammy nomination and best-artist-of-the-year honors from Spin magazine.

Within a year of its formation in 1986, Jane's Addiction was a club and campus phenomenon. The band had every record company executive in Los Angeles clubs checking it out, trying to sign it and cash in on the groundswell.

Fans and reviewers hoped the band would retain its affiliation with the obscure Triple X label, but Jane's Addiction's first nationally distributed album bore the Warner imprimatur. Critics accused the band of selling out - but fans found Jane's Addiction just as satisfying as before. Without a video, and with very little airplay, "Nothing's Shocking" (1988) sold a quarter of a million copies and netted a Grammy nomination.

Mr. Navarro has no apologies for the label jump, which he says was made on the condition that the band retain creative control.

"If you're going to put out music for people to hear, you might as well put it out for a lot of people to hear it," he says.

He maintains, however, that he's indifferent to the money-making aspects of national success. " I don't listen to how many records we've sold. I don't care how many records we've sold.

"We haven't made money yet. Why would we be doing this for five years if all we wanted to do was make money? We enjoy doing this and we enjoy what we do."

Jane's Addiction is the creation of Perry Farrell (a take on "peripheral"), who selected each member himself.

Although Mr. Farrell has characterized the band's output as art, Mr. Navarro disagrees. "I never call our music art. I think there's a lot of artistic creativity in it, [but] I think we deal a little more with reality."

Their music mostly fits the thrash/speed metal mode - heavy on amplified guitar and pounding drums. Still, a few songs develop a bit more musical sophistication. "Jane Says" off "Nothing Shocking" features steel drums and moody acoustic guitar. "Been Caught Stealing," a club hit from the new album, has a catchy, danceable beat. Not surprisingly, these are the songs that have gotten the widest airplay.

Lyrics are a lost cause - the still-going-through-puberty monotone of Mr. Farrell's voice is mostly inaudible as he shrieks each verse.

The lyrical nonsense bounces from banal to bizarre. The former applies to "Been Caught Stealing": "When I want something/I don't pay for it/I walk right through the door/Walk right through the door/Hey all right!/If I get by, it's mine/Mine all mine!" Then there's the eccentricity of "Three Days": "Erotic Jesus lays with his Marys/Loves his Marys/Bits of puzzle, fitting each other/All now with wings!/`Oh my Marys! Never wonder/. . . Night is shelter for nudity's shiver . . . '/All now with wings."

"It is rock 'n' roll obviously, but I don't think it can be classified either," Mr. Navarro says.

Although you'll find the band's albums in the rock music bins, Jane's Addiction doesn't make things easy for record stores. The cover of "Nothing's Shocking" portrayed two naked, impassive women with their hair afire. Seven major record chains decided not to stock it. (All but two later gave in once the album started selling well.)

And when Mr. Farrell submitted the artwork for "Ritual" - featuring three anatomically detailed nude figures - Warner Bros. informed him some touch-ups would be necessary to make the album marketable. Mr. Farrell declined to make any changes, but agreed to an alternative cover for retailers upon request. The alternative version reprints Article I of the Constitution ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech"). The original "Ritual" cover has far outsold the Constitution version.

Nor does the band make it easy for radio stations to play its songs - the lyrics are often peppered with expletives. Mr. Navarro refuses to discuss any of the controversies that have dogged the band. "I don't want to spend a half-hour on one topic" is all he offers.

April 23
PRICE: Sold out
PHONE: 202/994-7411

Washington Post
April 29, 1991
Edition: FINAL
Section: STYLE
Page: c9

JANE'S ADDICTION'S RAMBLING JAMS
Author: Eric Brace

Jane's Addiction came to the concrete cube of the Smith Center at George Washington University and turned it into a sweatbox Tuesday night. At least it did on its double-time hip-hop tunes, such as "Standing in the Shower" and "Stop," speedy funk at its best. But when the band went into its slower tunes, such as "3 Days" and the encore, "Summertime Rolls," it sounded like an updated Grateful Dead, with meandering melodies and no real payoff

The biggest Jane's Addiction hit, "Been Caught Stealing," is one of the best of the sweaty tunes, and when it kicked in halfway through the set, the hardwood floor was literally bouncing with some 4,000 groovemeisters. It seemed a tired version, though, and the slow break inserted into the song took away from the relentless power that made it such a huge club hit. The whole band seemed a wee fatigued from its many weeks of touring Europe, and as this show was the first of another leg of a U.S. tour, one hopes it'll find some energy along the way!

Perry Farrell still exudes star quality, and the aggressive whine of his voice (somehow perfect for the songs he writes) was in great form, though it got lost in the gymnasium acoustics. Guitarist Dan (sic) Navarro did his best to provide a wall of sound but his tone was lost to the hall, and on "3 Days" he turned an aimless jam into ear mud. Farrell gave a couple of brief ironic lectures on changing the world, but he would have served his audience better by figuring out how to make the band's music match the dramatic stage sets.