Jane’s Addition – Queen Elizabeth Theatre – August 30, 2012
Over the 2 decades since forming, Jane’s Addiction has experienced massive hits, major downs, line-up changes, break-ups and reunions. Right now three-fourths of the California alternative rock band’s original members are in midst of a creative and critical upswing.
Touring in support of their late 2011 album, The Great Escape Artist, the band brought their Theatre of Escapists Tour to Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The staging was an elaborate multi-level, almost circus like set, with burlesgue pin-up girl backing dancers. Fitting the stage, original front men, Perry Farrell (51 years old) and Dave Navarro (45 years old) still theatrically bound about the stage like the young rockers they were 20 years ago (when I last saw the band). I suspect many of the audience had seen Jane’s Addiction around that same period, the waft of pot was heavy in the air as the crowd was thoroughly into everything the band was presenting. There was always so much happening onstage, dancers and video competing with the very animated band members. The wall of sound created by the musicians was a huge hit, however Farrell’s vocals were sometimes drowned out by the sound, very few of the diehard fans seemed to notice as they made their was through their large catalogue. The overall enthusiasm for the band’s massive stage presence buoyed any of us who were on the fence, and every one came away knowing they’d seen a true spectacle of rock theatre.