Saturday, November 14, 2015

Jane's Addiction - Voodoo Music Experience, New Orleans - Halloween 2015

This is the last of my posts from Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans' City Park on Halloween night 2015.  Babes In Toyland to this set by Jane's Addiction to Public Image Ltd to Ozzy and Friends (Slash, Tom Morello and Geezer Butler).  As I said in the other posts, it was a helluva night of music and worth the mud, mayhem and new pair of sneakers I had to buy the next day.  If you want the whole story, check out the links to those other posts, here we'll talk about the Jane's Addiction set.



When the Voodoo schedule came out it was cool to see that basically Jane's would have a 75 minute set "opening" for Ozzy.



I thought the whole current Jane's tour had them playing all of "Ritual de lo habitual" and they posted on Facebook saying they would be doing this album in full at Voodoo, so that was the expectation this night - all of Ritual and then encore with 2 or 3 other tunes or maybe a 10 minute "Chip Away" jam.



The set started as expected with the Spanish spoken word intro and right into "Stop!" 



We then immediately realized it wouldn't be a full "Ritual" set as they skipped "No One's Leaving" and went into the third track instead, "Ain't No Right" (by the end of the night we would get five of the nine tracks off "Ritual")



This current lineup of the band features three of the four original members with Perry Farrell on vocals and various noises, Dave Navarro on guitar and Stephen Perkins on drums.  Chris Chaney has replaced Eric Avery on bass and made himself known at this point in the set with the instantly recognizable opening bass line to "Mountain Song" off "Nothing's Shocking"



Next up was the ridiculously catchy (I was humming this thing for at least a week after the show) "Just Because" off 2003's "Strays" album



We were then back to "Ritual" for an epic "Three Days" followed by the funk of "Been Caught Stealing"



Perry asked the crowd if we were ready to go "Up The Beach" which of course led into "Ocean Size" the killer opening tracks to "Nothing's Shocking"



Perry then asked the crowd if they were ready for a slow one and promised the guys in the crowd that it would be worth it because this next one would get the ladies in a romantic mood.  It was "Classic Girl" which I haven't heard them do in years and is a favorite.



The night would end with a pair off their self titled album.  First "Whores" to end the main set, then they brought the steel drums out front and a chair for Dave to lounge in for the sing-a-long of "Jane Says"







The only problem, that was a great SIXTY minute set.  They started on time and walked off 15 minutes before their schedule which was a complete bummer.



My guess is this was related to the weather and perhaps they were asked to cut it short in hopes to get Ozzy on earlier before the place was completely flooded/mudded out (which is exactly what ended up happening, causing the cancellation of the whole next day.  Not a huge deal for me.  Would have been cool to see The Cult and Third Eye Blind again as I haven't seen them in years and I keep getting told I have to check out Zac Brown band live and chances are this was the only time that was going to happen...oh well)  This would have been a logical plan, but Ozzy started right at 9:30 as he was expected to and if anything went slightly long pulling out some deep Black Sabbath cuts.



But overall it's was minor complaint. Oddly this set went over probably much better than all of Ritual in order would have.  They cut out the more atmospheric tracks and beefed up the set with monster riffing from the other albums.  Not sure Ritual would go over great in front of a mostly casual fan large festival crowd.  And hell I love everything by these guys.  I prob only would have been pissed if they cut Three Days or Classic Girl.



Perry was a great front man throughout the night, welcoming the rain and welcoming the crowd to dance with him through it.  He was also rather funny in his between song banter, at one point stating something along the lines of "There's warnings out there to get to higher ground...so I took some drugs...and then my manager told me that's not what they meant"



Lastly I have to mention the ladies (which included Perry's wife Etty Lau Farrell, Lisa Eaton, Maxine "Mama" Hupy - and if anyone knows the names of the others I'll be sure to tag them in their photos).  As many of the women swooned over shirtless Dave Navarro, Jane's has a bevy of beauties to dance, act out, strip, make out and fly over the stage in violent fashion suspended by hooks in their backs for the rest of us to enjoy.





It's everything that's great about a truly great rock n roll show...and probably the best band I've ever seen open for Ozzy (I didn't see Ozzy on the "The Ultimate Sin" tour with "Master of Puppets" era Metallica opening...I'll give you that one, that would have been hard to beat)



Well done Voodoo Music Festival - made for great Halloween festivities and made us forget the mud until the music stopped and we had to hike out of that deep, sticky stinky slop.



Enjoy the rest of the photos below (click on any of them to super size).  Also if you dug this review, go to the Most People Are Blank Facebook page by clicking here and click the "Follow" button to join to be kept up to date on future posts, to comment, share and take part in our giveaways and contests (some damn good ones coming soon!)  Also follow on twitter at @MostPeopleBlank   As always - Rock on and Enjoy - Paul








 


 



 


 



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