Wife of Jane's Addiction singer addresses fight on stage

BOSTON — A Jane’s Addiction reunion show in Boston didn’t go quite as planned, as the show ended early after frontman Perry Farrell body-checked and appeared to take a swing at guitarist Dave Navarro.

“Whatever’s going on in that band obviously boiled over on stage last night and it’s too bad,” said Boston author and former Herald reporter Dave Wedge, who was at the Friday night show at Leader Bank Pavilion show in Boston’s Seaport, seeing the band for perhaps his seventh or eighth time. “I’d be surprised if they ever play together again.”

The show was thunderously loud and what could be seen on stage was only part of the story. But what is obvious is that, as Navarro was picking through a solo in “Ocean Size,” Farrell walked over and body-checked him.

Navarro put his arm up to keep Farrell at a distance as crew members and founding bass guitarist Eric Avery walked up to restrain Farrell.

“Clearly there had been a lot of tension and animosity between the members,” Farrell’s wife Etty Farrell, posted on Instagram following the show. “The magic that made the band so dynamic. Well, the dynamite was lit. Perry got up in Dave’s face and body checked him.”

Etty Farrell said she made her post to give a “first person account of what happened” to avoid speculation.

She wrote that Perry Farrell’s “frustration had been mounting, night after night” because the stage volume was far too loud and he felt that “his voice was being drowned out by the band.

“Perry had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat every night,” she wrote. “But when the audience in the first row, started complaining up to Perry cussing at him that the band was playing too loud and that they couldn’t hear him, Perry lost it.”

She said that he couldn’t hear past “the boom and the vibration of the instruments and by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just (to be) heard.”

Wedge agreed that there was something off: “They’re usually amazing but last night they were awful. They sounded awful and it was mostly the vocals.”

“The bands called Jane’s Addiction, you know. Dave Navarro is one of the most famous sober people in the world, but Perry Farrell’s known for drinking a bottle of wine onstage,” Wedge added. “Look, he’s a 65-year-old man who’s been a rock star touring throughout his whole life. … He’s bound to have health issues.”

Some readers were unsatisfied with Etty Farrell’s story when she brought bassist Avery into the mix. She said that Avery, while everyone else was trying to deescalate the situation, ran up in the dark “put Perry in a headlock and punched him in the stomach three times.” She said it was a “cheapshot.”

Some commenters accused Etty Farrell of enabling her husband who needs some mental help and criticized her for blaming the sound personnel or Avery for the situation.

One commenter said her story was “deranged gaslighting. Perry chose violence.”

While some people have expressed an interest in getting a refund for the show, Wedge said that the problem came at the end of the set so he doesn’t feel that he didn’t get what he paid for.

“If it is their last show in Boston, I’m happy I was there,” he said. “I’ll always remember it, that’s for sure.”