Jane's Addiction - August 05, 1991 - Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH

Date: August 05, 1991
Location: Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
Recorded: Audio
Video (audience)
Status: Confirmed
Type: Concert
Lineup: Perry Farrell
Dave Navarro
Stephen Perkins
Eric Avery
Morgan Fichter
Artwork:
 

Setlist:

Up The Beach
Whores
Standing In The Shower... Thinking
Ain't No Right
Thank You Boys (tease)
Three Days
Been Caught Stealing
Trip Away
Ted, Just Admit It...
Then She Did...
Mountain Song
Stop!
Summertime Rolls
Ocean Size

Show Information:

This was a Lollapalooza 1991 show.

 

Thanks go out to 'Angry Canine' for the first ticket scan.

Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
August 7, 1991

ICE-T MOST REFRESHING AT EXTRAVAGANZA MUSIC REVIEW LOLLAPALOOZA FESTIVAL
Author: JANE SCOTT PLAIN DEALER ROCK REPORTER

The seven-band, sold-out "Lollapalooza Festival" Monday at Blossom Music Center was the most exciting and varied lineup since the World Series of Rock at the Stadium.

It was a perfect day in the 70s - sunny but not humid, with the late-night temperature still in the 60s. The 9-hour traveling alternative concert began on the dot of 2 p.m. with the Rollins Band, followed by the BH Surfers and wound up with host band Jane's Addiction at 11:30 p.m.

And it proved that young people have a huge hunger for alternative music, bands that don't get played on the average Top 40 station. It also proved that the Lollapalooza advice to Blossom executives to "keep the concert loose" (not hire too many guards) was a mixed blessing.

It gave the desired freedom to fans. But even before the encores the crowd went out of control at times, surging down the aisles, knocking fans out of their seats. Probably no amount of guards could have prevented this. Later, ushers discovered smoke from a bonfire set on the lawn during the Jane's Addiction set.

At first the schedule seemed a little skewed. Hot item Ice-T in the middle of the lineup? But his momentum built up to homeboys Nine Inch Nails. Then Living Colour and Siouxsie and the Banshees steadied the show until the finale.

Ice-T, with the strongest booming voice and presence, took the Blossom crowd like the Indians took the Texas Rangers that night (9-0). He chipped away at another Ice - rapper Vanilla Ice - along the way.

He was the only one to do a rap and metal rock show and to make a strong civil rights statement. "Two things," he said. "Rock 'n' roll has nothing to do with race. The only race is the human race. And rock 'n' roll is a state of mind."

He worked the alternative audience deftly, putting down milder metal groups. His hometown, south Los Angeles, has streets named Slayer and Megadeth, not little suburban drives like Poison Court (boo!) or Bon Jovi Cul de Sac (more boos!) he said.

Ice-T's new hard metal band, Body Count (lead guitar Ernie C., drummer Beat Master Vick, bassist Moose and rhythm guitarist De-Nice), thrashed out superbly on such tracks as "There Goes the Neighborhood," "Colour" and "LBGNAF," (the letters are better left unexplained, Ice-T said.) The final song, "Cop Killer," was dedicated to Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, and the police who stopped the rapper on the way to Blossom.

Nine Inch Nails, an industrial-strength group formed in Cleveland, started with the energy in "Terrible Lie" that most bands hope to build up to. It had the advantage of playing after dark and made effective use of dry-ice mist. It showed why many major labels are courting lead singer Trent Reznor's small TVT label.

During the the flaming finale, "Head Like a Hole," bassist Eric Avery and guitarist Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction joined in, then dove into the audience along with Reznor and the Nails' guitarist Richard Patrick. Reznor lost his T-shirt in the fray and Patrick was skinned down to his shorts.

The front of the pavilion was turned into a pit, with seats removed. Fans were given a yellow plastic bracelet and allowed to slam dance and stage dive. The diving turned into a fever during Jane's Addiction's show.

Grammy Award winners Living Colour, founded by guitarist Vernon Reid, had a classy mix of rock and funk. Vocalist Corey Glover's voice was the most fluid of the singers, and he roller-coasted his voice. The band was a standout in its own way even though it couldn't reach the fire and frenzy of the others.

Siouxsie Sioux (Susan Dallion) in a harem-style black outfit, was a good contrast, the only major woman on the tour. Her low, sultry voice was especially effective on her Top 6 hit, "Kiss Them for Me." However halfway through, her constant dancing became monotonous, with songs difficult to distinguish.

Jane's Addiction, led by Perry Farrell, was the natural high for most of the crowd. He had put together the "Lollapalooza" concept, including an open-air tent structure with local art selected for exhibit as well as booths for such causes as Greenpeace and the League of Women Voters. Though his loud, storming songs were wildly received, his highlights were a poignant "Three Days" and a fine "Then She Did" with Cincinnati-bred violinist Morgan Fichter joining in the latter song.

However Farrell's section was marred a bit by his personal sexual statements and his emphasis on a mock lesbian love scene by his two blond singers.

Akron Beacon Journal (OH)
August 6, 1991

'MINIATURE WOODSTOCK' ALTERNATIVE MUSIC, BLACK LEATHER AND NOSE RINGS ARE AMONG EXPERIENCES OF YOUNG CROWD AT LOLLAPALOOZA
Author: WILLIAM OUTLAW, Beacon Journal staff writer

When the big guy with a double Mohawk haircut and a cast on one arm dove into a crowd of slam dancers, wound up on his face, got back up and started dancing again it was pretty obvious: This was not a Barry Manilow concert.

What the big guy, along with some 18,700 other people had come to see was Lollapalooza -- a daylong festival of alternative music, black leather, nose rings and underwear worn as outerwear.

Now to keep things in perspective, it's important to note that almost everybody at Blossom Music Center on MonDAY, was not slam dancing and screaming ' violence' like the 30 or so guys who spent a good deal of their time ricocheting each other around.

Most people were stretched out enjoying the sun on their blankets and checking out the procession of bands across the Blossom stage.

On the schedule MonDAY, were: Jane's Addiction, Ice-T, Living Colour, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, the Butthole Surfers and the Rollins Band.

As rapper Ice-T pointed out during his set, everybody at Lollapalooza was exposed to music they weren't used to and to people they don't usually hang around with.

'It's really cool. It's kind of like a miniature Woodstock, I guess,' said Mitch Thompson, who came from Columbus to check out the show.

'Really cool,' of course, is a relative term.

By early evening, the event was relatively cool for police, who reported three arrests for drug charges and several for selling bootleg T-shirts.

'I'd probably leave if I could understand the words,' said Jane Groh, who drove her son and a friend to the show. You see, Jeff Groh is only 15, too young to drive, so he and Mom made a deal: Jeff cleans the car, Mrs. Groh drives Jeff and a friend to Lollapalooza. Oh, and Jeff's assessment of Lollapalooza: 'It's a great show,' he said with a smile.

Jeff wasn't the only one who had to find a ride to the concert. It was a young crowd.

'I feel like everybody's grandmother,' said Kathy Melvin, who at 28 was a good decade older than most of the people sitting around her.

Kathy and Rick Melvin drove in from Washington, Pa., SunDAY, night.

From Blossom, the 21-city Lollapalooza tour, the biggest concert draw of the summer of '91, moves on to Toronto and then to Boston.

Cuyahoga Falls was the closest tour stop for the Melvins.

'We figured, well, we're not going to let that stop us,' Rick Melvin said. There was more to Lollapalooza -- slang for 'very exceptional' -- than the thrash, crunch, rap and rock blasting from the Blossom stage.

There was a row of booths for issue-oriented organizations set up that ran the gamut from the League of Women Voters to Refuse & Resist, a national organization opposed to the current U.S. political agenda.

Planned Parenthood had a table set up and was handing out free condoms.

Greenpeace, the National Abortion Rights Action League, Handgun Control Inc., the Center for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Cleveland Music Group all had tables and were passing out literature.

At the Amnesty International booth, you could get your very own 'Torture Sucks' shirt, and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were handing out pamphlets and selling buttons for a buck.

One of the goals of Lollapalooza -- beyond a kicking good time -- is to get information from a variety of sources to the people who come to the show and let them make up their minds where they stand on the issues, according to Lollapalooza promoters.

And if you got tired of having your mind expanded at one of the issues booths, there was always the food.

On the menu: Butthole Burgers and Jane's Addictive Wings.

There was, however, a little matter of cost.

'I love the Butthole Surfers, but I'm not going to pay $6.75 for one of their hamburgers,' said Erik Michalski, 18, of Austintown. slb

Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
August 9, 1991
Column: Michael Heaton
Minister of Culture

LOLLAPALOOZA CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

Column day began with football sadness. The Mad Farmer called to say that Paul Brown had died. I was in one of those passage-of-time funks on my way to the bank when I noticed a group of purple-haired people loading up a car. Then I remembered. The Lollapalooza traveling circus was in town.

The summer's biggest rock event, one that dwarfed the Guns N' Roses yawn-on-the-lawn tour, included seven of the country's top alternative bands and was organized by Jane's Addiction lead singer Perry Farrell and his management company. Along with an amazing array of musical styles, the all-day event included tents and booths promoting everything from voting to having your head braided, shaved and painted blue. My job: Find a story.

Arriving at Blossom's front gate three hours after the show had started, there was an extremely inebriated young man freshly ejected from the event, suicidally taunting a group of policemen at the entrance. There was danger in the air providing the requisite tension and authenticity for any bona fide rock 'n' roll outing. This was no mellow Grateful Dead tribal gathering. This wasn't Huey Lewis jock rock. This wasn't a '60s nostalgia tour. This was hard and loud cutting edge stuff, accurately reflecting the dark and scary tenor of the times.

Local boy Trent Reznor was on stage whipping the sold-out crowd into a fevered frenzy with his hit song about greed and corruption, "Head Like a Hole." Hearing 18,000 crazed youth chanting the chorus, "Bow down before the one you serve/You're going to get what you deserve," was both exhilarating and unnerving. Not even the headlining Jane's Addiction would hit that level of violent intensity. It was a celebration of anger, frustration and despair. The New York Times called the Lollapalooza tour "a Woodstock for the Lost Generation."

The crowd is always the star of these events. Getting quotes from rock luminaries during these drinking and decibel orgies is usually an exercise in futility. My colleague Eric Olsen described one such attempt. "I asked one of the BH Surfers a question," he told me, "and he threw up on the ground and walked away." How's that for an answer?

I walked up on the lawn in my search for knowledge and understanding. All I had learned in the media tent was that you had to pay for the beer. Then, someone weighed in with a description of a novel sexual technique which involved paper plates. Not exactly what I had in mind. Although it was understandable. The sight of 10,000 teen-age girls in black underwear does shock the system and lead to carnal thoughts.

I nosed around in the art pavilion on the top of the hill. That's when I realized what a cool idea Lollapalooza really was. By using music as bait, Perry Farrell was introducing local kids to local artists. He was in a way undermining his own show. He was telling kids that there was more to life than rock music and that art is where you find it. You can be creative with a guitar, a paint brush or a haircut. And you could see that ethos in the kids at the show. Their style of hair and dress was the intersection where punk and hippie styles meet high-fashion and commerce. They had created their own culture. This was their music, their people, their event.

Impersonating one of the artists by standing alongside his work and asking people what they thought, I met a woman named Hortensia. She had a weird, warm glow of wisdom and I felt like she would lead me to a story. We circumnavigated the grounds observing the crowd and listening to Living Colour. She had four tatoos and five boyfriends, all of them millionaires. By the time she had told me the story of her life, we were back at the art pavilion.

There we met Kevin Shahan, an artist whose assemblages and sculptures fascinated us. There were two male torso body casts complete with genitalia. In one, the chest cavity was open like the door to a tabernacle revealing a nuclear missile. It was titled "The Shrine of Destruction Exists Only in Men's Souls."

Shahan, a 24-year-old senior art student at Kent State, said that his art was his way of finding out who he was in the world. The doom-and-gloom theme of his work was his way of inadvertently working out his anger, frustration and pain. Thousands of people had seen his work for the first time that day and a Columbus woman who owns a gallery asked him to send her slides.

From looking at his sculptures and experiencing the emotional power they conveyed to Hortensia, myself and others, I had the feeling that beyond rowdy rock 'n' roll atmosphere of the afternoon and evening something important had happened out at Blossom Monday. I felt that at least one member of the Lost Generation had begun to find his way home. And maybe others.

Hortensia said goodbye and descended into the pit for a last blast of Jane's Addiction's industrial-punk-funk finale. I drove back to Cleveland where people were pouring out of the Stadium after only the third quarter, moping about a lousy performance and making dire predictions for the Brown's upcoming season.

The day ended as it began. With football sadness.