Fans of rock band Jane’s Addiction have expressed concern for singer Perry Farrell after he confronted and punched guitarist Dave Navarro in the middle of a show in Boston.
Attendees say Farrell appeared to be very drunk at Friday night’s show, while others say it was nothing unusual to see the frontman, who has been known to down bottles of wine on stage.
Disappointed fans took to social media after Friday’s show, calling Farrell a “disgrace” and saying he was “drunk” after attacking Navarro and punching him with his fist before band staff separated them.
It’s unclear what exactly prompted Farrell to lash out at Navarro on Friday night, with some claiming the singer began yelling at Navarro during ‘Mountain Song.’
The outburst during the song echoes a review of Champions League Tampa last week, where one critic wrote that Farrell “struggled” and “went into a spiral” when the band started playing Mountain Song after “drinking from an entire bottle of wine.”
Frontman Perry Farrell began swearing into a microphone before turning on guitarist Dave Navarro and punching him during Jane’s Addiction’s show in Boston.
Disappointed fans said Farrell was drinking from a bottle of wine before the outburst, which is said to be a common sight at his performances (pictured at a show in California in February 2024).
Farrell “launched into a lot of meaningless speech” about cow pastures, mushrooms and politics, the review said, and He only stopped when Navarro ‘deliberately played a loud, piercing chord on his guitar, almost to silence Farrell and get the show back on track’.
The review, written by critic Gave Echazabal, noted that Farrell drank from a bottle of wine as he struggled to keep up with his heavy metal bandmates.
“Farrell’s performance was late or disjointed, and it was difficult to match his mediocre performance with the sheer, defined power the band was producing behind him,” Echazabal wrote.
He added that after watching Farrell obsess over the bottle of wine, “you almost got the feeling that this wasn’t the first bottle he’d uncorked that night.”
The Boston show came a week after the band played two sets in New York City as part of a reunion tour after the group reunited for the first time in 14 years earlier this year.
Perry Farrell, right, approached guitarist Dave Navarro, left, and began punching him during the shocking exchange in Boston on Friday.
Crew members had to come in to separate the couple and get Farrell off the stage.
On the first night of shows in New York City, Farrell told a crowd at Pier 17 that he was not in great shape for performances, and attendees said there seemed to be bad blood between the bandmates.
Farrell told the crowd: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have to be honest with you. There’s something wrong with my voice. All of a sudden, I can’t get the notes out.”
Bassist Eric Avery took to Instagram after the show to speak to fans, saying he was “looking forward to playing this spectacular rooftop venue again tonight. I’m optimistic we’ll be better.”
The day after the mid-show altercation, Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau, took to Instagram to share her husband’s side of the story.
Lau claimed her husband, the band’s frontman, was upset after his bandmates “choked him out” by playing too loud at the Boston show, which she said continued for several songs before he “lost control.”
In an Instagram post after the outburst, Farrell’s wife Etty Lau (pictured together) claimed her husband “lost it” because his bandmates were “drowning” him because they were playing too loud.
“Rather than speculate, I thought I’d post a first-person account of what happened on stage,” he wrote after footage of the fight went viral.
Lau said Farrell has been struggling with “tinnitus and a sore throat every night” that has affected his voice, and “he felt like the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band.”
She admitted that there had been “tension and animosity between the band members” but felt this wasn’t always a bad thing as it was also “the magic that made the band so dynamic.”
But on Friday night, Lau said her husband reached breaking point after fans booed him because they couldn’t hear him.
Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau, took to Instagram after the fight to offer her and her husband’s perspective on the incident.
“When the audience in the front row started complaining and Perry even swore at him because the band was playing so loud they couldn’t hear him, Perry went crazy,” said Lau, a former original member of the Pussycat Dolls when it was a dance troupe.
“He didn’t sing, he shouted just to be heard.”
Attendees say Farrell appeared to be very drunk at Friday night’s show, while others say it was nothing unusual to see the frontman, who has been known to down bottles of wine on stage.
Fans said tensions began to rise during the band’s performance of “Mountain Song,” and by the time they got to “Ocean Size,” three songs later, Farrell was furious.
“The band started the song Ocean before Perry was ready and counted in,” Lau said.
‘The stage volume was so loud at that point, Perry couldn’t hear over the din and vibration of the instruments and by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just to be heard.’
Farrell pictured during a performance in 2010 in Sydney, Australia
Lau closed his Instagram post with a comment about “who won the fight,” stating that bassist Eric Avery emerged victorious by aggressively confronting Farrell.
“While Dave (Navarro) kept Perry at a distance to calm the situation, Dan (Cleary, a technician for the band) rushed in to calm her down as well, holding Perry back,” Lau wrote.
‘Dave walked away to take his guitar. Eric walked up to Perry, upstage in the dark behind Dan, put Perry in a headlock and punched him three times in the stomach.’
Lau said Avery had to be “pulled aside,” before the bassist “calmly walked to the front of the stage to apologize to the audience for the show ending early.”
She said that while Navarro “still looked handsome and calm in the middle of a fight,” her husband “was a crazed beast” after the altercation.
“He ultimately didn’t calm down, but instead started crying and crying,” she said, concluding that Avery “either didn’t understand what de-escalation meant or took advantage of the situation and took some cheap shots at Perry.”
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