Etty Lou Farrell, the spouse of Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell, has posted her own account of why the band’s show went deeply south Friday night in Boston, with a detailed explanation of who was doing what — and who was punching who — during and after a calamitous confrontation that brought the concert to an early halt.
She wrote on her Instagram account Saturday morning that her husband was upset about the band’s sound levels drowning out his vocals, and that led to his assault on seemingly unsuspecting guitarist Dave Navarro. Etty Lou has complimentary words for how coolly Navarro handled the situation. On the other hand, she lays into bassist Eric Avery for “cheap shots” in allegedly putting the singer into a headlock and punching him three times — something that wasn’t clear from widely disseminated fan video of the on-stage altercation.
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Etty Lou doesn’t hold back on describing her husband’s volatility during and after the incident, describing him as “a crazed beast” for a good half-hour after the concert abruptly ended, adding that he broke down and “cried and cried.”
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Video posted from multiple accounts late Friday, seen in Variety‘s previous account of the fracas, showed a clear account of much of the incident. Farrrell is seen angrily getting in the face of Dave Navarro and grunting at him, then giving his bandmate an aggressive shoulder bump before finally throwing a punch at the guitarist. At that point, the stage lights were dimmed, making difficult to viewers to make out exactly what was happening as other figures began to intervene. But what was evident was that two crew members and bassist Eric Avery tackled the enraged Farrell to get him away from Navarro, and ultimately they pulled the singer off stage, as he appeared to still be struggling with them even as he was yanked into the wings.
Farrell’s wife took to her Instagram account to offer a literally blow-by-blow account of what she saw going down, and she offered high praise to Navarro for playing it cool in the face of her husband’s rage. But she also accused Avery of “cheap shots” in allegedly punching the singer three times in the stomach, after putting him in a headlock.
“Rather than speculating, I thought to post a first person account of what happened on stage with Jane’s Addiction last night at the @lenderpavilion in Boston,” Etty Lou Farrell wrote. “Clearly there had been a lot of tension and animosity between the members… the magic that made the band so dynamic. Well, the dynamite was lit. Perry got up in Dave’s face and body checked him.”
Although Etty Lou refers to the initial “body check,” she does not mention the punch that Farrell thew next at Navarro, at which point all hell seemed to break loose. (It’s not clear from the video whether the hit actually landed.)
She continued by explaining away her husband’s rage as a result of sound issues. “Perry’s frustration had been mounting, night after night; he felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band. Perry had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat every night. But when the audience in the first row started complaining up to Perry, cussing at him that the band was planning too loud and that they couldn’t hear him, Perry lost it.
“The band started the song ‘Ocean’ before Perry was ready and did the count-off. The stage volume was so loud at that point that Perry couldn’t hear pas(t) the boom and the vibration of the instruments and by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just be to be heard.”
Etty Lou Farrell then asks the question “who won the fight?” — and then answers it by blaming Avery for overreacting and landing blows on her husband.
“Why, Eric Avery of course,” she writes, in less-than-complimentary fashion. “While Dave was keeping Perry at arm’s length to de-escalate the situation, Dan rushed over to de-escalate as well by holding Perry back. Dave walked away to take his guitar off. Eric walked up to Perry, upstage, in the dark, behind Dan, put Perry in a headlock and punched him in the stomach three times. Kevin, crew member with long hair, pulled Eric away. Then Eric nonchalant walked off to the front of the stage to apologize to audience for the show end(ing) early.”
In the aftermath, Farrell’s spouse writes, “Dave still looked handsome and cool in the middle of a fight. Perry was a crazed beast for the next half an hour — he finally did not calm down, but did break down and cried and cried. Eric, well, he either didn’t understand what de-(es)calation meant or took advantage of the situation and got in a few cheap shots on Perry.”
She concludes: “Well, that’s is my first-person account narrative of what happened. Take a look at the video yourself.” She then adds hashtags that, broken up, read: “A man can only be pushed so far.” “Dave took the high road.” “Cheap shot.” “Mother eagle.”
Left unclear in Etty Lou Farrell’s account is why, if her husband was enraged about the sound, he specifically targeted Navarro as the target of his animus.
Although this was by far the most dramatic show so far on the Jane’s Addiction tour — their first such outing in 14 years — there had been signs of intra-band tension or vocal difficulty at earlier stops, as reported in reviews and fan accounts.
Jane’s Addiction had done two shows at the Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York City earlier in the week that had led to no small amount of social chatter and either concern or disdain for Farrell. At the first of the two gigs, the singer apologized for his voice failing — a situation Etty Lou Farrell later alluded to with her description Saturday of a sore throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have to be honest with you. Something’s wrong with my voice… I just can’t get the notes out all of a sudden,” Farrell reportedly told the crowd. The next day, Avery went online to further admit the band had not put on the best performance, saying he was “optimistic we will be better” on night 2. By most accounts, things did go much better on the second night in New York, and Farrell was described as returning to fine vocal form in a JamBase review saying the group “rebounded to end New York City run on a high note” — although the publication noted “some of (Farrell’s) stories were engaging and others rambled as he chugged from a bottle of wine.”
At an earlier tour stop this month in Florida, a reviewer for Creative Loafing noted that Farrell was in “a quizzical state” and prone to “incoherent speech,” which led to “odd, uncomfortable moments” and apparent tension between him and Navarro. “Farrell launched into many nonsensical rants about cow pastures, mushrooms, surfing, living in Florida, and arguing with his brother about politics, among other undecipherable topics,” the reviewer wrote. “Chugging from a full bottle of wine throughout the performance, one almost got the feeling that this wasn’t the first bottle he’d uncorked for the night.” Navarro appeared impatient with this, according to the critic. “At one point, during one of his ramblings, Navarro deliberately cranked out a loud, piercing chord on his guitar, as almost to silence Farrell and get the show back on track.”
Nevertheless, some other shows on the tour — a joint co-headlining tour with Love & Rockets — have proceeded without incident and been widely praised by fans who’d waited 14 years for the occasion.
As of early Saturday morning representatives for Jane’s Addiction and promoter Live Nation had not responded to Variety‘s request for comment.
The tour’s next stop is scheduled to take place Sunday at the Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater in Bridgeport, Conn. If the show goes on as planned, expect a lot of attendees to pre-emptively have their phones out for the entire length of the concert.
Many music fans have made jokes on social media about how they imagine the fight being a preview of what might happen next year when the battling Gallagher brothers reunite for an Oasis tour. But Liam Gallagher has already weighed in on the Jane’s Addiction situation. In response to a comment that described the Jane’s fight as “You and Noel by night 3,” the Oasis singer earnestly responded: “I don’t think so we’re very professional these days we’re go(ing to) blow your minds.”
Liam Gallagher offered one other succinct response to the footage of the Jane’s blowup: “There (sic) attitude stinks.”
