Jane's Addiction - Doncaster Dome - 3/11/03
5/5
By: Matt Tomiak
To paraphrase one Andrew WK, when it was time to party, Jane's Addiction partied hard. Really hard.
A four-pronged prog/psychedelic/glam/metal/rock beast formed in LA nigh-on twenty years ago, the band's appetite for unbridled hedonism is the stuff of legend. Although the nineties saw the band embark upon one full comeback tour, festival appearances and various side-projects, it wasn't until this summer and their 'Strays' LP (their first in thirteen years) that Jane's unleashed any actual new music. Such a lengthy hiatus would surely prove to be the undoing of many a band. But hell, Jane's Addiction are not just 'any band'.
Tonight's concert - the third of a six-date UK tour - occurs in a sports hall within a giant leisure complex. But JA's ostentatious majesty is not dulled one jot.
Led by the inimitable, snake-hipped, implausibly high-pitched, 44-year-old Perry Farrell, they possess one of the great rock showmen. Dressed in a sleeveless denim shirt, elbow-length gloves and glittering neckerchief, this super-camp, otherworldly rock pixie could sure teach the new kids on the block a thing or two about the art of performance. And in ex-Chili Pepper Dave Navarro, the quartet's much pierced/tattooed and magnificently bearded guitarist extraordinaire, Farrell has an equally extroverted foil.
Yet, the frontman hasn't even come on stage as Navarro, looking every inch a bona fide rock god, mounts a speaker for the giddy, astral brilliance of instrumental 'Up The Beach'. And when Perry does appear, tearing into 'Stop!', it's as typically flamboyant as you'd expect; there he goes, pirouetting across the stage, leaping into his bandmates, and giving it his all.
Material from 1988's 'Nothing's Shocking' and 1990's 'Ritual de lo Habitual' still sounds fresh and exciting alongside the new stuff (the latter capped by an acoustic, epic 'Just Because'); notably of yore, the delirious 'Been Caught Stealing' and the supremely colossal 'Oceansize'. The roars say it clear enough. How did we manage without them for just so long?
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment