If you were holding out hope that Jane’s Addiction would be able to once again work out their differences and get back on the same page, guitarist Dave Navarro is ready to say never. The multi-platinum band’s highly-anticipated original lineup reunion run came to a screeching halt in September of 2024, after a string of erratic performances and tension drove a wedge between the band and their vocalist Perry Farrell.
Ultimately, that dispute played out in the public eye, with Farrell charging and swinging a fist at Navarro onstage during a set in Boston, MA. It’s also been stated that Farrell later attacked Navarro backstage after that meltdown as well. You can relive that incident via this past footage.
As you’d expect, the fallout to the onstage blowout was immediate, with the group disbanding and distancing themselves from Farrell, who himself would go on to issue an apology. In a new interview with Guitar Player, Navarro described that night as the low point of his live career, while also ruling out any further attempts at reconciling with Farrell. He stated:
“There were a couple of gigs on this last run that we did last year in Europe with Eric Avery back on bass that were some of my favorite Jane’s Addiction gigs of all-time. There was no bullshit: No props. No nothing onstage. No dancing, no pyro, and no gimmicks. It was just the four of us and some colored lights, and we were playing the songs, expanding on them, and getting in a kind of weird.
If you combined Grateful Dead and Radiohead, there were moments like that — just weird, experimental jams that we’d never done before as a band.
And yet, if you were to ask me what my least favorite gig was, it would be a gig last September, on Friday the 13th, in Boston.
I have to speak in broad strokes here, because there are other individuals involved, and it’s still very tender and unresolved.
There was an altercation onstage, and all the hard work and dedication and writing and hours in the studio, and picking up and leaving home and crisscrossing the country and Europe and trying to overcome my illness [via Navarro was diagnosed with long COVID-19] — it all came to a screeching halt and forever destroyed the band’s life. And there’s no chance for the band to ever play together again.
I have to say that’s my least favorite gig, without throwing animosity around, and without naming names and pointing fingers, and coming up with reasons.
There was an altercation onstage, and it all came to a screeching halt and forever destroyed the band’s life.
I’ll just say that the experience prior to that gig, when we were in Europe and gelling, really, for the first time — because at our ages, in our 50s and 60s, everybody’s done what they’re gonna do, and we weren’t competitive with each other — we were getting along. There was no ego issue; it was just four guys making great music, just like we did in the beginning. I was just us on a stage, with people going fucking crazy.
And that gig, September 13th, in Boston, ended all of that. And for that reason, that is my least favorite gig that I have ever played.
I think that’s a pretty democratic way, you know, a pretty bipartisan way to go about it. You know, just the real sadness is the loss of that previous…
The experiences are there, but the potential of having those types of experiences ended that night. And so, you know…. it is what it is. And that’s my answer.”
- Source: NEWHD MEDIA
