Jane's Addiction - May 19, 1991 - Roy Wilkins Auditorium, St. Paul Civic Center Forum, St. Paul, MN

Date: May 19, 1991
Location: Roy Wilkins Auditorium, St. Paul Civic Center Forum, St. Paul, MN
Recorded: No known recording
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
Ocean Size
Trip Away
Summertime Rolls
Mountain Song
Stop!
Ted, Just Admit It...
Chip Away

Show Information:

The Chickasaw Mud Puppies opened.

Thanks go out to Kevin for the article scan.

St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
May 18, 1991
Edition: Metro Final
Section: Showtime
Page: 12B

THE ART OF ROCK//JANE'S ADDICTION, THE IRREVERENT, ART-ROCK BAND, HAS ARRIVED - DESPITE ITS BEST INTENTIONS.
Author: Rick Mason, Staff Writer

So who's Jane, what's her crutch, and why does Jane's Addiction's tenuous existence passionately concern those who love rock 'n' roll in all of its outrageous glory?

Since the existence wouldn't matter without the passion, let's start there. Jane's Addiction is a renegade quartet that juggles conceptual art; music that lurches along a fractured art rock-metal-punk continuum, casually crusading against expectations from every quarter; and an offhand defiance derived from intense commitment to its particular deviance.

The band inspires fevered reactions among both fans and skeptics, thanks to its equally uncompromising music - which has the adventurous spirit of pre-formula rock 'n' roll - and anti-mainstream philosophies.

Thus, Jane's Addiction's performance Sunday night at Roy Wilkins Auditorium (with the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies opening) has been long sold out, as have most of the other dates on its current spring fling.

Meanwhile, the band long has jousted with the forces of censorship. Some retailers initially balked over the nude sculptures by band leader Perry Farrell adorning its two Warner Brothers albums (female Siamese twins with their hair in flames on "Nothing's Shocking," a menage a trois set among the talismans of the pagan-Christian folk religion Santeria on "Ritual de lo Habitual"). Farrell created an alternate cover for "Ritual" featuring only the First Amendment on the front and a few choice comments linking censorship and Hitler on the back. A couple of videos filmed by Farrell also caused considerable consternation at MTV. And most radio stations refused to play "Ritual's" first single, "Three Days," which picked up on the menage-a-trois theme.

None of this, including the band's ambivalence toward popular success, has prevented Jane's Addiction from emerging from underground and into the Top 20 spotlight.

In fact, when "Ritual" was released last fall, Farrell was quoted saying, "I'm hoping that it never gets to Top 40. I've also requested that the songs only get medium rotation on the radio stations. I don't want heavy airplay."

Farrell, who considers music only one of his multimedia artistic pursuits, also frequently has suggested Jane's continued existence is highly doubtful.

"In the beginning, Perry and I went into this as a pair of art-damaged kids," bassist Eric Avery, who helped Farrell kick off Jane's Addiction in 1986, has said. "Rock stardom was not something we were shooting for. It kind of feels like there's a crescendo to this record, like a time to stop."

The band's publicist, meanwhile, goes on for 20 minutes about Farrell's current refusal to do interviews and let his art "speak for itself," then warns that if you want to see Jane's Addiction, do it this summer when the band may be headlining a package tour dubbed "Lollapalooza."

Whether or not this is it for Jane's boys, it's been a strange and notable trip.

Perry Farrell grew up on Long Island as Perry Bernstein, went to high school in Miami and eventually adopted his brother's name as a pun: "peripheral."

And it was definitely on the periphery where Farrell got into show biz - lip-syncing and dancing at a private club in California. Farrell eventually figured he could do some actual singing and was practicing on his own when the mysterious Jane - allegedly a prostitute and mutual friend - introduced him and Avery. Avery, in turn, rounded up guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins, who were into metal at the time but had played together since their high-school band days.

Farrell started writing songs that flouted convention and raged at a world engulfed in absurdity, standing with both feet in the toilet while flushing hard.

"Two good shoes won't save your soul," Farrell cackled in his peculiar falsetto in "Idiots Rule," elsewhere ranting about God's apparent non-existence, the successive generations that have ravaged the Earth and a society desensitized to violence.

The rest of the band constructed a unpredictable onslaught that could careen in a full-metal tilt, wander into a psychedelicized plunge toward sonic anarchy, get funky or ease into a lilting acoustic tune with calypso overtones.

Eventually, the underground buzz became so great that - to the band's great amusement - major labels engaged in a bidding war to sign Jane's gang, with Warner Bros. winning by promising creative freedom.

What has become so exciting and challenging about Jane's Addiction's music is that the band operates on its psychic impulses and artistic whims and isn't concerned with selling itself.

The spontaneity carries over especially into performances, where the band has vowed never to play the same set twice, occasionally surprising fans with unlikely covers such as the Grateful Dead classic "Ripple."

The epic sweep and odd imagery that sometimes lurk in Jane's Addiction and prompt non-admirers to charge the group with overriding pretension apparently don't bother Farrell.

"Of course, we're an art band," he's said. "Art has gotten so far away from popular music that people actually have to create its own category for it."

Oh, as for Jane's actual addiction, no one's saying exactly. So chalk it up as music that pulverizes, rails and caresses the usual into the surprising, and then moves on before it gets stale.

WHAT: Jane's Addiction, with the Chickasaw Mud Puppies opening
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.Sunday
WHERE: Roy Wilkins Auditorium, 143 W. Fourth St., St. Paul
TICKETS: $18.50 (sold out)