Perry Farrell’s wife Etty has shared her first-person account of last night’s Jane’s Addiction show in Boston, in which her husband shoved then punched guitarist Dave Navarro.
The singer was then dragged offstage by several crew members, and during that time Etty alleges bassist Eric Avery struck Farrell three times. “Clearly there had been a lot of tension and animosity between the members…the magic that made the band so dynamic,” she wrote on an Instagram post. “Perry’s frustration had been mounting, night after night, he felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and [that] his voice was being drowned out by the band.”
After explaining that her husband had been suffering from a sore throat and tinnitus as a result of repeated exposure to high stage volumes, Etty stated that fans in the front row were heckling Farrell during the Boston show, saying they couldn’t hear him at all. The final straw came when the band launched into “Ocean Size” before the singer was ready: “By the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just to be heard.”
After Perry shoved and then punched Navarro and was in the middle of being pulled away by the crew, Etty claims bassist Eric Avery “either didn’t understand what de-escalation meant or took advantage of the situation and got a few cheap shots” in on her husband. “[He] put Perry in a headlock and punched him in the stomach three times.”
Noting that Navarro “still looked handsome and cool in the middle of a fight,” Etty revealed that her husband “was a crazed beast for the next half an hour,” stating that he didn’t exactly calm down but instead broke down “and cried and cried.”
The band has yet to offer any comment or statement on the incident. Currently on tour with their original lineup for the first time in years, Jane’s Addiction are scheduled to perform again tomorrow night in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
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Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
