Jane’s Addiction has issued an apology and canceled their next tour stop after frontman Perry Farrell seemed to grow agitated by the crowd and noise, eventually taking it out on Dave Navarro. The Lollapalooza founder then seemed to take a swing at the guitarist before being separated by other bandmates and crew.
“We want to extend a heartfelt apology to our fans for the events that unfolded last night,” the band posted on Instagram. “As a result we will be cancelling tomorrow night’s show in Bridgeport. Refunds will be issued at your point of purchase – or if you purchased via a third-party reseller (StubHub, SeatGeek, etc.), reach out to them directly. Thank you Jane’s Addiction.”
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The apology comes hours after Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau, shared the footage on Instagram in an attempt to head off speculation about what happened.
“Rather than speculating, I thought to post a first person account of what happened on stage with [Jane’s Addiction] last night in Boston,” she wrote in the caption. “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.
“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 caption continued.
She also claimed that Eric Avery was the “winner” of the fight and said he made several “cheap shots” at the frontman during the incident. “While Dave was keeping Perry at arm’s length to de-escalate the situation…Eric walked up to Perry, upstage, in the dark, behind Dan, put Perry in a headlock, and punched him in the stomach three times.”
It’s hard to tell in the clip she posted, but it does look like someone gets Farrell in a headlock as the lights go out, with movements that could be a punch that followed.
She added that “Dave still looked handsome and cool in the middle of a fight” while Farrell was “crazed” for the next half hour before breaking down crying. “Eric, well he either didn’t understand what descalation meant or took advantage of the situation and got in a few cheap shots on Perry,” she concluded.
The band’s next tour stop would be Toronto on Wednesday and is set to conclude in October in Los Angeles. Will the band be able to co-exist until then? Was the Boston show their unofficial “final” show? Will the Gallagher brothers outdo all of this with the Oasis reunion shows? All remains to be found out.
