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Rock review, Jane's Addiction at the Allstate Arena

By Greg Kot Tribune rock critic October 23, 2001

In 1991, Jane's Addiction left the music scene while it was still on top. The Los Angeles quartet had made two impressive, groundbreaking albums and then headlined the inaugural Lollapalooza tour, which became a template for the lucrative multiband festivals of the '90s to follow, including H.O.R.D.E., Lilith Fair and Ozzfest.

But in the last decade, the members of Jane's Addiction have frittered away that impressive legacy with underachieving solo projects and tours that, while well-received, essentially were exercises in nostalgia— exactly the sort of impulse Lollapalooza and the first wave of alternative-rock bands set out to destroy.

Now on their second reunion tour in five years, singer Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins—joined by bassist Martyn LeNoble, subbing for founding member Eric Avery—still do a fine Jane's Addiction impersonation. The music, and the spectacle that accompanies it, often approached spectacular heights Sunday at the Allstate Arena.

Farrell's voice was trumpetlike in its darting, high-pitched potency, a clarion call to celebration that he modulated expertly, creating the illusion of intimacy and space by altering the distance between microphone and lips with a jazz vocalist's dexterity. Navarro's guitar gave the impression of hang gliding between the surging peaks and swooping chasms excavated by Perkins' thundering, four-limbed drumming.

The quartet, abetted by a keyboardist, had the old moves down pat: an exotic mixture of brutal power and sensuality on "Ocean Size" and "Summertime Rolls," metal roar and Middle Eastern groove on "Three Days," the folk-punk directness of "Jane Says" and the serpentine progressive-rock elusiveness of "Mountain Song." The mood was festive and upbeat, with Farrell as mariachi dancer, marionette, pimp and shaman all rolled into one writhing, wriggling, strutting series of costume changes. He emerged in a parachute dress that hid five dancers beneath its billowing folds and finished the main set in bikini underwear that hid almost nothing from the eyes or the imagination.

"Ain't no wrong, ain't no right," Farrell yelped, "only pleasure and pain." It was a moral code the music and staging embodied, a visual feast of splendor and tawdriness, a kaleidoscopic fantasia of Christmas lights, lasers and dancers arrayed on a series of ancillary stages. For a supposed visionary, Farrell still exhibits some of the same Neanderthal tendencies exhibited by a less-enlightened generation of older rock stars, particularly in his choice of eye candy. Female dancers, juggling gymnastic grace and strip-club seediness vied for the audience's attention; as art, it was somewhere between Cirque du Soleil and a lap dance. But Jane's music remains a dramatic bridge between Led Zeppelin and Smashing Pumpkins, world music and heavy metal, postpunk and alternative.

It was a great band, and may one day be again. But right now, it's on cruise control. On its 1997 reunion tour, the quartet relied heavily on its acclaimed 1988 and 1990 albums, "Nothing's Shocking" and "Ritual de lo Habitual," to carry the show. That it did exactly the same thing five years later is inexcusable. Once Jane's was the sharpest of the cutting-edge bands. Now it has become as predictable as the dinosaur rockers it once made extinct, touring the hockey rinks of North America for the most disappointingly banal reason: money.

From Dylan to Tangerine Dream

By Greg Kot September 9, 2001

After a summer of spectacles -- major tours by the Madonna, Janet Jackson, 'N Sync, R. Kelly and Eric Clapton, plus Ozzfest and Moby's Area -- the fall concert season brings a welcome return to intimacy. If the summer was all about the superstars, the new season is devoted to club and theater shows by respected cult acts.

Of course, there are exceptions. Bob Dylan and Britney Spears will headline the arena circuit, but for the most part, it's time to think small.

A listing of some of the fall highlights in rock and pop follows (for tickets and details call 312-559-1212 unless otherwise indicated):

Oct. 20: Zen Guerilla
Oct. 20-22: Midnight Oil
Oct. 21: Ani DiFranco
Oct 21: Jane's Addiction
Oct. 21: Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
Oct. 26: Low
Oct. 27: Bob Dylan
Oct. 28: Metallenium with Six Feet Under, Napalm Death
Oct. 31: Widespread Panic
Nov. 2: Oysterhead (Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, Stewart Copeland) Nov. 2: Tangerine Dream
Nov. 3: Afro-Cuban Allstars
Nov. 10: Nebula