Last Night: Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails at Fiddler’s Green

Jane’s Addiction & Nine Inch Nails

Better Than: Seeing Dave Navarro hanging out with porn stars.

Near the end of Nine Inch Nail’s set, frontman Trent Reznor said this current outing with Jane’s Addiction would be NIN’s last tour. It seemed like an odd way for NIN to go out after being one of industrial music’s prime players for the last two decades and then having a farewell tour opening for Jane’s Addiction.

Not a bad way to go out, all in all. Reznor and
company went out on a high note, delivering a solid set of nearly twenty songs that spanned
Reznor’s two decades of making music under the NIN moniker. Halfway
through the quartet’s set, NIN got the pit stirring on the hard-hitting
“Burn” (from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack) and followed it up with the equally propulsive “Gave Up” from 1992’s Broken.

NIN wasted little time between songs; Reznor said they were trying to fit as many songs as they could in the time they were allotted, which was roughly an hour and forty-five minutes. The group knocked out “Dead Souls” and “The Day The World Went Away” before darkness fully set in and the act went through “Hurt,” with the crowd singing along, lighters in hand.

Although NIN closed its set with a full-throttle take on “Head Like Hole,” it still wasn’t a match for Jane’s Addiction’s vigorous set. Jane’s Addiction’s opening song “Three Days” was all it took to pretty much forget NIN’s set. The song began slow and lilting, but a few minutes into it, drummer Stephen Perkins started hammering out thundering tribal rhythms on the toms, while Dave Navarro dug in on the guitar, delivering some blistering riffs.

But while Perkins, Navarro and original bassist Eric Avery were in the trenches turning out one stellar cut after another, frontman Perry Farrell was easily the focal point of the group. Sporting skin-tight pants, a glossy black jacket and a scarf, the lanky singer lit up the stage, shaking maracas off his ass on “Three Days,” and slowly, gracefully waving his arms like a Swan Lake reject on “Then She Did…”

Farrell’s pipes are still very much intact, as he showed on the explosive takes on “Ain’t No Right” and “Been Caught Stealing,” which got a few gals so riled up they threw their bras on the stage. While there might’ve been some eye candy down in the pit, during “Ted, Just Admit It,” scenes from Natural Born Killers (like the one where Juliette Lewis dances in the diner) and Bettie Page were projected on the white screen above the band. The scenes worked perfectly with Ferrell singing the phrases “nothing’s shocking” and “sex is violent.”

After closing the set with a righteous take “Ocean Size,” the band came back for the dreamy “Summertime Rolls.” Just before launching into a supercharged take on “Stop,” Farrell told the crowd, ” We will never die. We will never stop.” The outfit closed its set with the drum-machine propelled “Jane Says,” with Perkins on steel drums and bongos, and Navarro and Avery on acoustic guitars. 

Critic’s Notebook

Personal Bias: Having been a Jane’s Addiction fan for two decades, I don’t know how the hell I made it this long before actually seeing the band live.

Random Detail: A clip from the film The River Wild was show just before Jane’s Addiction took the stage.

By the Way: The two bands were both on the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991. While Jane’s Addiction broke up for the first time after the tour, it also pushed NIN further into the spotlight. 

 Nine Inch Nails

Set List – Fiddler’s Green

05/26/09

Wish

Last

Heresy

March of the Pigs

Something I Can Never Have

Metal

Reptile

Burn

Gave Up

Non-Entity

The Way Out Is Through

Mr. Self Destruct

Survivalism

Suck

Dead Souls

The Day The World Went Away

Hurt

The Hand That Feeds

Head Like a HoleJane’s Addiction

Set List – Fiddler’s Green

05/26/09

Three Days

Whores

Ain’t No Right

Pigs in Zen

Then She Did…

Mountain Song

Had a Dad

Ted, Just Admit It

Been Caught Stealing

Ocean Size

Summertime Rolls

Stop

Jane Says