"Nothing's Shocking: The Ritual of Reuniting Rockstars" - Jane's Addiction, live at Roundhouse, London (May 2024)
/Date of event: 29 May 2024
Nothing’s shocking until Jane’s Addiction hits the stage in 2024 with their classic lineup and plays a new song or two.
Last night’s show at Roundhouse in London was incredible, with both Dave Navarro back on guitar after his 2-year battle with long COVID and Eric Avery holding down the bass, making this one of precious few performances in the past decade and a half with all the pioneering players together.
Jane's Addiction - 'Ocean Size', live in London
The intimate 400-cap club gig at Bush Hall last week was the big reveal with Dave and the final piece in this post-pandemic puzzle for the American alternative rock legends.
Although Eric rejoined the band in 2022 after a long spell away himself, the bittersweet catch was that it coincided with Dave’s illness. Thus each show until Bush Hall has seen a revolving line-up of guitarists, including the great Troy Van Leeuwen and Josh Klinghoffer, accompany the founding members.
So for a fan like me seeing Jane's for the first time live, these are the days you wish for as the group approaches its 40th anniversary.
Decorated with raccoon eye make-up and sporting a swishy shawl, Navarro is so integral to their heavy, psychedelic sound, with his rippling riffs reminding everyone why his return to the six-strings is something to celebrate.
With the setlist drawing almost entirely from their iconic output from the late ’80s and early ’90s, it's also obvious why the soul of Jane's Addiction resides in the singular, circular bass lines of Eric Avery.
His heroic, hulking presence haunted every song on the night, providing that deep, driving rhythmical canvas together with Stephen Perkins for the peacocked patriarch Perry Farrell to paint his charismatic vocals on, as the singer provocatively preached, purged, and surged with effects-pedalled panache.
But the ritual wasn’t all habitual, as we got live renditions of some new material on this second of two nights at the Roundhouse. ‘Imminent Redemption’ and ‘True Love’ both found their way into the setlist and hopefully into the studio soon - the former was particularly perky and pleasing.
Jane's Addiction - 'Imminent Redemption', live in London
There ain’t no wrong or right in going back to the beginning, which did mean skipping ‘Strays’ and other Avery-less 21st-century albums. But after so much pain, there can only be ocean-sized pleasure in performing with your pals again.
Writer Kurt Duvel sets his coordinates to London’s Victoria Park for All Points East - a multi-day music festival in just its second year - and reports back from Saturday’s ‘rock’ lineup, which included performances from the likes of Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr, Courtney Barnett, The Raconteurs, Interpol, and headliners The Strokes.