Article and Photos by: Jason Robey

Alt-rock pioneers Jane’s Addiction rocked a short but energetic set at Veterans Memorial Coliseum as part of the Arizona State Fair’s 2015 concert series. Over the course of 12 songs and just over an hour, vocalist Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro showed the crowd that while “rock stars” may not be as abundant as they once were, they do still exist.

The band took the stage like a storm with “Stop!” and “Ain’t No Right,” from 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual,
as Farrell dialed his own vocal effects from a box mounted on the stage. The band didn’t slow down through the next several songs, including crowd-favorites “Mountain Song” and their breakthrough 1990 hit, “Been Caught Stealing.”

The band finally slowed the tempo a bit for “Three Days,” complete with scantily-clad dancing girls, including Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, who has been dancing with the band since 1997. Throughout the rest of the show, different dancers in different outfits decorated the stage.

Farrell, now 56, still dances and prances around the stage with the energy he had back in 1991, when he began the Lollapalooza tour, as a “farewell” for the band.

Bassist Chris Chaney and Drummer Stephen Perkins may not be as “in the spotlight” as Farrell and Navarro, but they kept a solid and impressive rhythm throughout the night.

For the set closer, “Whores,” all the various dancers returned to the stage, two of them being lifted up to fly over and around the stage for the duration of the song.

After a short break for the stage to be reconfigured, the band returned for an acoustic one-song encore of one of their best known songs, “Jane Says,” featuring Perkins on steel drums. The set may have been relatively short, but the band was on point, their sound as tight and intense as ever before.

Setlist:

Stop!

Ain’t No Right

Mountain Song

Just Because

Had a Dad

Been Caught Stealing

Three Days

Up the Beach

Of Course

Ocean Size

Whores

Jane Says