"I can tell you one thing: it’s been one of the most exciting times of my life, because these songs are that good": Jane’s Addiction's original line-up returns to the stage as North American tour announced
Plus, more new material teased at intimate London date
Jane’s Addiction have announced a full North American tour days after they made their live comeback with a show in Shepherd’s Bush, West London.
The reformed Los Angelenos will kick off a six-week co-headling tour with Love And Rockets in Las Vegas on August 9th that will run through to a September 29th date in St Louis.
Last Thursday’s gig at Bush Hall was the first time all four original – Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery – had shared a stage in fourteen years. Guitarist Navarro has spent recent years battling against a severe bout of long Covid and had been replaced on Jane’s live dates by Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens Of The Stone Age and Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer.
Playing in a relatively intimate 400 capacity venue, the band mixed Jane’s classics Been Caught Stealing and Mountain Song with newer material like 2023 single True Love and the brand new song Imminent Redemption. After the latter Perry Farrell remarked that the song felt fitting with the upcoming UK general election, saying that announcing the news the day before was “the first right thing he’s (Rishi Sunak) done in my life.”
The band play the second of two nights at London’s Roundhouse tomorrow (Wednesday), followed by Glasgow and Manchester dates, before heading onto Europe.
Farrell has been talking about the possibility of new music. In an interview last year with Brazilian radio station 89 A Radio Rock he talked about a new ‘bunch of’ songs. “We don’t know how many we’re gonna put out. But I can tell you one thing: it’s been one of the most exciting times of my life, because these songs are that good.” The band haven’t released a new album since 2011’s The Great Escape Artist.
In related news, Farrell has also revealed that Rick Rubin tried to buy the rights to the Lollapalooza name after the 2004 edition of the festival was cancelled.
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In a three part Paramount+ docu-series about the festival, Farrell and co-founder Marc Geiger opened up about how when a proposed revival of the travelling punk fest failed to get off the ground, Rubin made his move: “I was hurting for money. I don’t know why, but Rick Rubin decided to make an offer to me to buy the name for like a million dollars. I won’t tell you exactly how I put it, but I said no.”
The following year, Lollapalooza was relaunched as a fixed location fest at Grant Park Chicago and since gone from strength to strength, spawning international editions in Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Sweden and India.
Farrell originally conceived the festival after being inspired by Britain’s Reading Festival. Its original travelling iteration lasted from 1991 to 1997 and by mixing guitar acts with artists from the emerging hip-hop scene was largely credited with revitalising the North American festival market.
Lolla: The Story Of Lollapalooza is available to stream on Paramount+
Will Simpson is a freelance music expert whose work has appeared in Classic Rock, Classic Pop, Guitarist and Total Guitar magazine. He is the author of 'Freedom Through Football: Inside Britain's Most Intrepid Sports Club' and his second book 'An American Cricket Odyssey' is due out in 2025