Jane’s Addiction have announced they are cancelling their current north American tour, following an onstage altercation between frontman Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro at a Boston gig on Friday night.
A statement posted to Navarro’s Instagram, signed by Navarro and bandmates Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins, reads: “Due to a continuing pattern of behaviour and the mental health difficulties of our singer Perry Farrell, we have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to discontinue the current US tour. Our concern for his personal health and safety as well as our own has left us no alternative. We hope that he will find the help he needs.”
Navarro said the band members “deeply regret” not being able to perform for fans, but “we can see no solution that would either ensure a safe environment on stage or reliably allow us to deliver a great performance on a nightly basis. Our hearts are broken.”
The Guardian has contacted representatives for Farrell for comment.
Footage taken at the Boston gig shows Farrell shoving and punching Navarro, before he is restrained by crew members. He was removed from the stage, precipitating the end of the show.
Farrell’s wife Etty Lau later wrote on Instagram that the singer had “felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band”.
She said he had also been suffering from a sore throat, and Farrell had apologised to a crowd at a New York gig earlier in the week, saying: “Something’s wrong with my voice. I just can’t get the notes out all of a sudden.”
The new hiatus will disappoint fans who were looking forward to seeing Jane Addiction’s classic-era lineup reunited after decades away, with Avery returning to the fold this year for the first time since 1991, and Navarro also back following a couple of years off due to long Covid.
In a five-star review of the reunited lineup in May in London, the Guardian’s Stevie Chick wrote: “Tonight, they play rock as thing of beauty as much as show of strength – always their signature play back in the day, but something that’s eluded them on the nostalgia-driven reunion circuit. However, with the classic lineup at last realigned, visibly pumped to be in each other’s company, and with new material on the way, they’ve not sounded this vivid and alive in decades.”
The band had been set to play a further 12 concerts across the US and Canada in coming weeks.
Jane’s Addiction formed in 1985, and their first two albums – infusing hard rock with an irreverent psychedelic energy – went platinum in the US. Their return in 2003, Strays, was a Top 10 hit and was followed by 2011’s The Great Escape Artist.