UPDATE, 7:45 p.m.: Rock band Jane’s Addiction apologized to their fans after an onstage brawl that broke out at their concert in Boston last night, adding that they are canceling their next show scheduled for tomorrow: “We would like to sincerely apologize to our fans for the events that unfolded last night,” the musicians wrote on their Instagram Story. “As a result, we will be canceling tomorrow night’s show in Bridgeport. Refunds will be issued at your point of purchase – or if you purchased through a third-party retailer (StubHub, SeatGeek, etc.), contact them directly. Thank you, Jane’s Addiction.”
For Jane’s Addiction, the situation on stage quickly escalated when a brawl broke out between rock stars at their show in Boston.
YouTube footage of the band’s Friday the 13th concert shows singer Perry Farrell shoving and hitting guitarist Dave Navarro before the lights in the hall dim and the show abruptly ends.
“F— you!” Farrell can be heard yelling at Navarro after leading the crowd in a chant during a performance of their 1988 song “Ocean Size.” Navarro held up his guitar to defend himself before crew members rushed the stage to pull Farrell off of him.
Perry’s wife Etty Lau Farrell shared a “first-hand account” of the events on Instagram, explaining that the band started the song “before Perry was ready and did the countdown.”
“Obviously there was a lot of tension and animosity between the members… the magic that made the band so dynamic was gone,” she wrote. “Well, the dynamite was ignited. Perry tackled Dave and body-slammed him to the ground.”
Etty Lau added: “Perry’s frustration grew from night to night. He felt that the volume on stage was extremely high and his voice was being drowned out by the band. Perry suffered from tinnitus and a sore throat every night. But when the audience in the front row started complaining to Perry and yelling at him that the band was too loud and they couldn’t hear him, Perry freaked out.”
Although she credited Navarro with trying to “de-escalate the situation” by keeping Perry at a distance, she said bassist Eric Avery came up behind her husband in the dark, “put Perry in a headlock and punched him three times in the stomach” before a crew member pulled him away. “Eric then calmly walked to the front of the stage to apologize to the audience for ending the show early,” she wrote.
“Dave still looked good and cool in the middle of the fight. Perry was a crazy animal for the next half hour – he finally didn’t calm down, he just broke down and cried and cried,” added Etty Lau. “Eric, well, he either didn’t understand what de-escalation meant or he took advantage of the situation and gave Perry some unfair punches.”
The performance took place as part of Jane’s Addiction’s 23-city co-headlining tour with Love and Rockets.
