As the videos of Perry Farrell attacking Dave Navarro onstage at Jane’s Addiction’s Boston show were going viral over the weekend, it was making sad for the future of the band, but mostly sad for Perry, personally.

I say Perry personally because at the tour stop I saw in Tampa, Florida, the band was so on point musically that I was blown away! But Perry wasn’t there. I mean he was there physically, obviously, but I’m not sure where he was mentally. He would ramble, often incoherently, in between the songs. Where many singers interact with the crowd Perry seemed to be talking to himself. Most of us in the crowd couldn’t understand a word he was saying. And it wasn’t a volume issue. I was maybe 3 people back from the barricade, and I could understand maybe every 5th word he said, and often missed entire sentences. Or when I did understand what he said, I didn’t understand what he was saying, because it made no sense. He didn’t seem drunk, even though he was drinking a bottle of wine on stage. He only had a few pulls from the bottle that I saw, and he wasn’t stumbling. But he seemed mentally not there. He was moving very slowly, he was behind during the songs, and often off key, or completely inaudible. Here’s a video my wife got where you can really see how far off his timing is singing the lyrics, and how off key he was, too.

The last time, and also the first time, I’d seen them live was in Dallas on the 1997 Kettle Whistle tour with Flea playing bass since Eric Avery wasn’t in the band at the time. They sounded amazing then! And Perry was an explosive and intense front man. But this last show Perry was just different. Something was off. I don’t know what’s going on in his world, but he needs some medical help if nothing else.

Here’s the video of what happened over the weekend in Boston. At some point Perry gets pissed off, whether its at Dave or something else I don’t know. But Perry’s wife Etty posted that Perry had been upset previously with the volume of the other members, and that he’d been battling tinnitus and a sore throat:

I’m calling BS. He probably does have tinnitus, sure. Hell I have tinnitus from concerts and he’s done more than I’ve seen. But for 1, the on stage sound isn’t the responsibility of the other band members. They have monitor engineers who specifically control that volume and can adjust it at any time even during the concert. Same with the sound going out to the audience. If Perry couldn’t hear himself it wasn’t because Dave or Stephen or Eric turned themselves up too loud, that’s the monitor engineers job. What if that guy was turning Perry down because he sounded awful? And as far as starting a song early, well since Perry wasn’t able to keep time during the shows even while the songs were playing, and while he was talking to the crowds he was mumbling incoherently, maybe the other guys had no idea if Perry had started the song or not, but they were all together on it.

And as far as Eric “winning the fight”, well in the videos I’ve seen, like the one below, it sure looks like he went over to keep Perry from attacking Dave more, and Perry attacked Eric, and Eric wasn’t going to take it. Dave Navarro clearly looked shocked by the entire incident so it sure seems to me that Perry was just out of control without explanation.

While we may never know what really caused this, sadly the band has cancelled the rest of the tour, and some are speculating that Dave has quit the band with this cryptic Insta post:

Dave also posted the tour cancellation with this message from Dave, Stephen, and Eric, mentioning Perry’s “pattern of behavior and mental health difficulties”:

©2024 Cox Media Group