2009.05.08 Cruzan Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, FL

[Mike]

Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails bring the noise and the nostalgia

Sean Piccoli | Sun Sentinel Pop Music Writer
4:57 PM EDT, May 9, 2009

There's plenty of rock-star swagger left in Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction, but not a lot of rock-star mystique. Twenty years along, they're mostly the sum of their resumes.

But history, ego and a batch of good songs can go a long way in concert. And on the first night of a co-headlining tour, the performances by these two veteran bands also justified some curiosity about their futures.

Nine Inch Nails singer and founder Trent Reznor, who was first up, again suggested the end is near for this incarnation of himself. "This tour is kind of strange for us because we're going away after this," he said on Friday night at Cruzan Amphitheatre, west of West Palm Beach.

The band's set was retrospective, but not strictly a greatest-hits reel. The quartet left out Hurt, Closer and The Perfect Drug -- three of the more famous entries in Reznor's long musical diary of torments. In their place came unexpected cuts: Heresy, from 1994's The Downward Spiral; Burn, from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack; and the Reznor version of David Bowie's I'm Afraid of Americans.

The band summoned all the disciplined intensity that's required to play industrial music effectively, minding the electronic boundaries while making room to thrash around. Reznor's hybrid of computer software, rock-band hardware and steely singing still bristled on Friday. Its possibilities don't feel exhausted.

If Nine Inch Nails was saying heartfelt goodbyes, Jane's Addiction was arriving like a tipsy party guest. Three Days got the band off to a wobbly start, its transitions from dreamy to thunderous and back not quite making sense. But the classic-Jane's lineup of Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery only took that one song to gel.

Jane's Addiction didn't withhold hits or fan favorites, and didn't try like Reznor to negotiate with the nostalgia of the occasion by loading up on rarities. They just dived right in.

A bottle-waving Farrell cracked jokes and capered around in glamwear like it was 1989. "So does it feel like the old days?" he asked.

The question answered itself. This band's legend rests mainly on two albums released before Bill Clinton was president, but in that old trove there's enough rock-god euphoria and Guitar Hero fodder for ten lesser acts with bigger discographies.

Jane's Addiction ran the pharmaceutical gamut on Friday, from hyperactive (Been Caught Stealing, Stop) to blissed out (Ocean Size, Then She Did … ) to wrecked (Mountain Song). The street-urchin story Jane Says served as a sentimental acoustic sign-off to the evening.

Lyrics and melodies, as always, emanated from that strangest of places: singer Farrell's echo-bathed aviary of croaks, shrieks, wails and warbles.

A few surprises turned up, although 1% -- a stab at social commentary that never landed on a proper Jane's album-- felt like a distraction from the reunion festivities. Still, with the band relishing its turn on stage, and showing no inclination to fade away, it's natural to wonder if this return to form might lead to new music.

Sean Piccoli can be reached at spiccoli@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4832. He blogs at sunsentinel.com/thebeat.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainme ... 1996.story

[Mudget]

At this point we only lack video for the following:

Then She Did
Ocean Size

nice job dude.

wish those two would show up. maybe they will after tonight's show.

[Mike]

At this point we only lack video for the following:

Then She Did
Ocean Size

nice job dude.

wish those two would show up. maybe they will after tonight's show.

Thanks but no need for it really.
I didn't shoot the video or take the pics.

I want to see / hear Then She Did really bad.
I've got a feeling it will turn up eventually.
It's only been a little over a day.

I was looking around over on flickr again and there are hundreds of pics.

This one is a favorite of mine so far.



Here a link for the complete set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daecks/set ... 838811203/

[Mike]

Jane's Addiction
May 8, 2009
Cruzan Amphitheatre
West Palm Beach, Florida, USA

Taper: Mr. Foo <-> The Tootsiehead
Lineage: SP-CMC-2 > Battery Box > Tascam DR-07 > Audacity > xact

1. Three Days
2. Whores
3. Ain't No Right
4. Pigs In Zen
5. Then She Did...
6. 1%
7. Been Caught Stealing
8. Ted, Just Admit It
9. Mountain Song
10. Ocean Size
11. Up The Beach
12. Stop!
13. Jane Says

This was taped from the back of the general admission pit, standing about 10 to 20 yards from the stage, slightly right of center. I am very pleased with the quality. Lemme know what you think.

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-deta ... ?id=248852

[Mike]

Master NIN/JA sideswiped by a powerless PA

By Em Mendez | Concert Reviews, Live Shows, Music, Rock | May 09, 2009

Technology got the best of Trent Reznor in the end.

Try as he might to make the opening night of Nine Inch Nails’ farewell tour, Wave Goodbye, a fully interactive multimedia cybershow, the tech wizard was foiled by a lousy PA.

Friday night’s NIN/JA show at the Cruzan Amphitheatre was a feast for the technophile set. Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction fans were allowed to bring personal cameras, video and audio recorders. A running photo blog documented the action on NIN.com and fans who had downloaded the NIN iphone application posted real-time updates and commentary, chatting with nearby friends on the “app” since long before the gates even opened.

But someone turned off the PA before Nine Inch Nails could come out for their encore, “Hurt”.

Nails frontman Reznor shared his thoughts via a Twitter update he posted around 11 p.m.: “NIN/JA temper tantrum #1 thrown tonight in celebration of the PA being turned off for our encore, ruining an otherwise good set.”

If you don’t follow @trent_reznor or @nineinchnails on Twitter there’s a good chance you missed the beginning of the set, which started with the sun still out, at 7:45 p.m. You also may have missed the “tweet” explaining that the headliners would actually go on before Jane’s Addiction because, as Reznor is alleged to have posted on NIN.com, “there’s no way that we could rock after them.”

But they rocked. Hard. With sonic brutes like “March of the Pigs,” “Mr. Self Destruct,” “Burn,” “Wish,” “Survivalism,” “The Hand that Feeds,” and “Head like a Hole,” it’s a wonder no one got carried out of the mosh pit. The pulverizing industrial romps were balanced out by ominous and calm tracks, “Home,” “The Fragile,” “Gone, Still”‘ and “Right Where It Belongs”, scattered sparingly throughout.

Sherry Lanza, of Wellington, who had never seen Nine Inch Nails before, was left wanting more.

“I wish they would have played more from Pretty Hate Machine,” she said. “But the show was awesome. They were incredible.”

Reznor, a man of few words, rarely seen in anything other than all-black clothing, did pause briefly to tell the crowd, “We’re trying some different (stuff) out tonight.” Then after a long pause: “White pants.”

But the only visible difference was the make-up of the band, with guitarist Robin Finck, drummer Ilan Rubin and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen. The group of relentless professionals melded together so perfectly that any kinks in the chemistry weren’t audible.

“They sounded beautiful,” said David Kievit of Sebastian, who drove to West Palm for the night for the show. “They have really emotional songs. The music is just beautiful.”

It’s possible Reznor knew his white pants really couldn’t compete with Perry Farrell’s frontman fashions. The Jane’s Addiction lead singer dazzled in his black sequins slacks, an embroidered shirt and, of course, a black sequined boa.

Jane’s Addiction is sharing the stage with Nine Inch Nails for the first time since Lollapalooza 1991. Farrell, touring with original band members Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery, may have scared off a few Nails fans with his shine, as the crowd thinned out a bit.

But Farrell didn’t notice. He was in paradise.

“My friends, we have been here all week, setting this up, enjoying your beautiful, beautiful coastline. There ain’t a more beautiful place in the world to start this off,” he says with a smile. “The girls are fine. The men are macho. The water’s warm. You can’t wear much clothes out here. I love it.”

And so did Jane’s Addiction fans. The set was a bit shorter than Nails’, but it was filled with the rocking classics that made Jane’s the quintessential alternative band of the ’90s.

“Jane’s was radiant,” said Fernando Aguado of Miami. “To start a set with ‘Three Days’ means you’re telling people ‘I’m gonna throw down a set right here’.”

By the end of the show Farrell, now in a gleaming satin sage suit, had them all screaming for more.

The concert was rounded out with an opening set by Street Sweeper Social Club, a new project of Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morella and The Coup’s Boots Riley.

“I thought the whole show was amazing,” posts user Cinder8887 at 2:10 a.m. to her nearby NIN app friends. “I will def be checking out SSSC and would never have heard JA without this show. Nails left me shaking they were so good.”

” It was a great show!! ‘The Fragile’ and ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’ — I have no words to describe how good it was..” posts Mitcky53 on NIN.com.

And so begin the hundreds of catalogues of NINcasts which will be charged with capturing the final farewell of the techno-genius who, by the way, is doing daily ticket giveaways on Twitter.

That’s, of course, if there aren’t any more bugs.

http://www.pbpulse.com/uncategorized/20 ... erless-pa/

Follow the link below to checkout the photos posted with this review.

http://photos.pbpulse.com/mycapture/enl ... ryID=48431

[Mike]

Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction Launch NIN/JA in Florida

5/11/09, 8:45 am EST

Everyone, check your copies of Ritual de lo Habitual: Somewhere, there’s a Dorian Gray-esque portrait of Jane’s Addiction that shows the band members losing their hair and growing paunches. Onstage Friday night in West Palm Beach at the first night of the NIN/JA tour — Jane’s reunion, Nine Inch Nails‘ swan song — the four band members looked a lot like their 1990 selves. Give or take a couple clumsy spills across the Cruzan Amphitheatre stage (maybe those knees don’t work quite like they used to, or maybe it was the bottle of wine he was swigging), singer Perry Farrell was a preening, prancing, silly satyr. And Dave Navarro — ah, muscled, goateed, chain-smoking, bare-chested, alt-rock guitar icon, thy physique is perfection, and your hammer of the tattooed love god riffs are pretty good too.

Including original drummer Stephen Perkins (rocking a kilt) and secret-weapon bassist Eric Avery (keeping Farrell’s and Navarro’s egos tethered to the bottom), Jane’s came onstage for their first tour in 17 years full of themselves. First there was a short movie that touted the importance of the band’s return to children who never got to see them live and that of course featured JA’s habitual muse: pert-breasted pinups. Then there was Perry doing his Fiddler on the Roof court-jester hip dance, Navarro performing long manic love to not one but two guitars, Perkins soloing with not one but two bass drums, Farrell waving that bottle around like a merry prankster — and that was just the first song, epic opener “Three Days.”

The moon was full and Farrell was on home turf, with old high school chums in the audience. Before the encore, he dedicated the show to a friend who had passed. Then the band played a lovely, acoustic “Jane Says,” with Perkins on steel drums and the audience of course singing along. Interacting little during the previous 70 minutes, the players came together at the end, arms slung across shoulders, the demons that drove them apart at least temporarily quelled.

That unplugged moment was the rare instance when Jane’s Addiction hasn’t pursued the maxim more is more. Even before the dawn of the Nirvana era, they defined alt-rock as progressive music rather than punk. With a darker predilection for pomp, Nine Inch Nails was right there alongside them — literally, sharing the stage at the first, historic Lollapalooza tour in 1991. That festival broke Jane’s up. Unable to split with himself, Trent Reznor has stuck out the rise and fall of alternative — until now. “It’s been a good run,” the Nails head said, sounding pretty banal for the erstwhile dark sex god of industrial thrash. “Thank you for your support over the years.”

Taking the stage before Jane’s, while it was still light outside, NIN was at a distinct disadvantage — Reznor does not play summer feel-good hits. He and his three bandmates got straight to their business of calling the world a dark hole full of pathetic humans. Sorry to wax Nietzschean here, but NIN is Apollonian in its pursuit of order, compared to Jane’s Dionysian zest for excess. It’s always been a bit hard to take lyrics like “If there is a hell I’ll see you there” seriously, but it was even harder with a beach ball bouncing around the audience’s heads.

NIN sounded scary-great on “Head Like a Hole,” the first song on their first LP, and on a song that Reznor announced they had never played before, a cover of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans.” But the material from in between wore thin. Looking more like a meathead Tom Cruise than Alan Rickman’s black-magic Severus Snape, Reznor has not sipped from Jane’s fountain of youth. But there’s no doubt that his raw power has long spoken to the disturbed souls of goth youth, and when NIN didn’t come back for even one encore, the booing audience clearly felt like something important had been lost. Reznor Tweeted that the PA got shut off, giving him a “temper tantrum.”

The NIN/JA tour — which also features Tom Morello’s Rage-esque new band, Street Sweeper Social Club, which debuted in New York a few days before the Florida show — doesn’t mean that alt rock has hit the oldies circuit. It’s more like catching Genesis and Yes in, say 1985, when their best days were behind them, but you just wanted to say one more farewell. “Wave Goodbye” Reznor has dubbed this tour. Friday night, it ended a little sooner than he wanted.

Evelyn McDonnell

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/i ... n-florida/

[Mike]

Friday Night: Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction at the Cruzan Amphitheatre

By CrossFade in Concert Review ---------- Monday, May. 11 2009 @ 8:30AM

Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction
With Street Sweeper Social Club
Friday, May 8, 2009
Cruzan Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach

Better Than: Sex.

The Review:

Friday night in West Palm Beach marked the kick-off of one of the summer concert season's biggest tickets: NINJA 2009, a double-headliner vehicle for Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction. The tour is being billed as a welcome back for Jane's Addiction, and a farewell for now for Nine Inch Nails, and expectations were high The bands famously shared the stage at the first Lollapalooza, and with hit after hit in each of their back catalogs, as well as a shared fanbase with misty memories of the 1990s, there was a lot to live up to. Thankfully, each band delivered.

And although the bands are billed as co-headliners, well, somebody has to go first. On this outing it's Nine Inch Nails, who took the amphitheatre stage on Friday at the relatively early, and barely dark, time of 7:45 p.m. The 2009 version of NIN features Trent Reznor with longtime guitarist/synth player Robin Finck, as well as 2008 addition Justin Meldal-Johnsen on bass. The newest member, though, is Ilan Rubin, a 20-year-old former member of Lost Prophets who replaced Josh Freese earlier this year.


Opening with the melancholic "Home," from 2005's With Teeth, Reznor was in fine form. No scrawny 1990s physique here; Reznor in 2k9 is clean-cut and muscle bound, almost literally larger than life. With a lean live line-up, Reznor played the musical renaissance man, switching often between guitar, keyboards, and synths. His voice remained spot-on, as powerful as ever, and combined with a spare but throbbing light show, the overall effect was almost sensory overload -- but in a good way. The set, which spanned about an hour and a half, dug broadly across the band's repertoire, mixing numbers from the latest album, The Slip, with obvious earlier hits like "Heresy" and "Mr. Self Destruct." There were even two covers -- one of Gary Numan's "Metal," and another of David Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans."

And if you're wondering about "Closer," well, that's because the band didn't play it. Nine Inch Nails exited the stage after the propulsive "Head Like a Hole" ... and then failed, as most would assume, to come back for an "encore" to play its infamous hit. When the band didn't return, there was a round of real booing. And then the house lights came on, and then more, louder booing. Reznor later revealed on Twitter that a PA problem prevented the encore -- unfortunate, but the rest of the performance more than made up for it. Reznor again showing his live capabilities only makes his upcoming planned absence sadder.

Jane's Addiction, of course, then took the stage, boasting the original lineup of Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins, and Eric Avery, some 18 years since they all last performed together onstage. Opening the set was "Three Days " from the band's 1990 smash Ritual De Lo Habitual, and continued with hits like "Ain't No Right," "Ted Just Admit It," and "Been Caught Stealing." Farrell was in full 1990s-style garb -- shiny pants, feathery wings -- and it could feel as though band and audience were in a time warp. Ferrell, in fact, directly addressed the nostalgia factor by asking at one point, "So does it feel like the old days?"

It did, but in a good way; although the sound mix started out a little muddy, the band was at its full tripped-out weirdness. No surprise on the closer here, though -- the last song was, of course, its biggest hit, the one most ready-made for a mass singalong: "Jane Says." With the original Jane's Addiction lineup in tact for the tour, now fans can only hope for some new material in the near future.

-- Nicole Hoffecker and Arielle Castillo

Set List, Nine Inch Nails:

-"Home"
-"Somewhat Damaged"
-"Last"
-"March Of The Pigs"
-"Piggy"
-"Metal" (Gary Numan cover)
-"Heresy"
-"The Becoming"
-"I'm Afraid Of Americans" (David Bowie cover)
-"Mr. Self-Destruct"
-"Burn"
-"The Fragile"
-"Gone, Still"
-"Right Where It Belongs"
-"The Way Out Is Through"
-"Wish"
-"Survivalism"
-"The Hand That Feeds"
-"Head Like A Hole"

Set List, Jane's Addiction:

-"Three Days"
-"Whores"
-"Ain't No Right"
-"Pigs In Zen"
-"Then She Did..."
-"1%"
-"Been Caught Stealing"
-"Ted, Just Admit It..."
-"Mountain Song"
-"Ocean Size"
-"Up the Beach"
-"Stop!"
-"Jane Says"

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfad ... _may_8.php

[Mike]

It Happened Last Night
Jane's Addiction, NIN Kick Off U.S. Tour
The rockers hit the road together for the first time since 1991.

By John Hood 05.11.09 7:16 AM

There's a thin line between being timeless and being dated -- and Friday night at West Palm Beach's Cruzan Amphitheatre, at the opening date of their 22-date joint U.S. tour, Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails fell on decidedly opposite sides of that line.

First up, NIN, who, says frontman Trent Reznor, are now out on their last tour ever. Reznor's merry group of industrial strength head-bangers have been diligently dropping records since their birth in 1989, totaling eight studio full-lengths. And live they've got the cohesion and the power of a band who want to continue to prove something, despite -- or perhaps because of -- their success.

In front of 19,000 fans at the Cruzan, NIN proved something all right: That there's always going to be a place on stage for men who bleed volume. Reznor, buff as a gym rat and still madder than a hatter, led his band through a set of rarities, B-sides, and hits. Among the many highlights: their re-working of the Bowie/Eno tune "I'm Afraid of Americans," a suitably thrashing version of "March of the Pigs," and an almost touching, torchful "The Fragile," which is about the closest thing these guys get to a love song.

Unfortunately, something went amiss at set's end, and the expected trilogy of "Hand," "Head," and "Hurt" only got two-thirds in before Trent trashed his mic stand and stormed off the stage, never to return.

Jane's Addiction, in contrast, was like a band that can't stand each other. The animosity is especially evident between singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro, who did everything to show each other up. Perry posed stage left; Dave did likewise. Farrell mounted a monitor; there went Navarro. That the two didn't come to blows is a miracle of modern rock -- or perhaps testament to that calming bottle of Merlot Farrell was swiggin' throughout the set.

Unlike NIN, Jane's has very few LPs to cull from (four). Yes, they have their two big hits, "Been Caught Stealing" and "Jane Says," the former which was buried mid-set while the latter was -- shocker! -- the set closer. But they also have torrid tracks like "Mountain Song" and "Stop," which seem built for stadium sing-alongs -- if, that is, the crowd is in that happy place between crack-frenzy and heroin nod. Luckily, the fans were… if only for those two tracks.

With Farrell draped in silk and twirling like a Dervish, and Navarro stripped down to his tats, unleashing his own inner Narcissus, it was as if it was 1991 all over again and everyone was high on song. Or, of course, kinda like Lollapalooza '91, which was the last time these two behemoths shared a stage. But, as thye say, good things don't last -- this was just a few moments in the Jane's overlong 90-minute set.

Sure, NIN say this is the end of their days on the road, and Jane's Addiction insist we welcome them back. But, from the look of things on opening night, odds are the script will get flipped before this tour's over. Let's just hope it's before Farrell and Navarro kill each other.

http://www.spin.com/articles/janes-addi ... ck-us-tour

WTF