Perry Farrell’s Wife Explains Jane’s Addiction Meltdown

As reported earlier, Jane’s Addiction ended their show in Boston abruptly on Friday night (September 13th) after a physical altercation between singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro. Now, the vocalist’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, has posted a detailed account of the incident, accusing bassist Eric Avery of pummeling Farrell in the immediate aftermath.

To sum up what’s already been reported, Farrell angrily walked over to Navarro during “Ocean Size” and shoved the guitarist violently before throwing a punch at him, as well. The fracas was quickly broken up by a couple of crew members and Avery, with the show ending immediately thereafter.

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Etty has posted a “Who, How, What, Why, When” breakdown on her Instagram along with video of the incident, explaining that sound issues had been plaguing the tour, with Perry’s frustration growing each night. While she admits that Perry “lost it” onstage, she says that fans didn’t see what happened next, which was Avery apparently putting Perry in a headlock and punching him three times in the stomach. Her full account reads as follows:

“Rather than speculating, I thought to post a first person account of what happened on stage with @janesaddiction last night at the @lenderpavilion in Boston.

WHO: Perry Farrell & Dave Navarro

HOW: Clearly there had been a lot of tension and animosity between the members.. the magic that made the band so dynamic. Well, the dynamite was lit. Perry got up in Dave’s face and body checked him.

WHY: Perry’s frustration had been mounting, night after night, he felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band. Perry had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat every night. But when the audience in the first row, started complaining up to Perry cussing at him that the band was planning too loud and that they couldn’t hear him, Perry lost it.

WHEN: The band started the song Ocean before Perry was ready and did the count off.. The stage volume was so loud at that point, that Perry couldn’t hear pass the boom and the vibration of the instruments and by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just be to be heard.

SO WHO WON THE FIGHT:

Why, Eric Avery of course. While Dave was keeping Perry at arm’s length to de-escalate the situation. Dan rushed over to de-escalate as well by holding Perry back. Dave walked away to take his guitar off. Eric walked up to Perry, upstage, in the dark, behind Dan, put Perry in a headlock and punched him in the stomach three times. Kevin, crewmember with a long hair with long hair pulled Eric away. Then Eric nonchalant walked off to the front of the stage to apologize to audience for the show ended early.

WHAT WAS THE AFTERMATH?

Dave still looked handsome and cool in the middle of a fight. Perry was a crazed beast for the next half an hour – he finally did not calm down, but did breakdown and cried and cried. Eric, well he either didn’t understand what deescalation meant or took advantage of the situation and got in a few cheap shots on Perry.

Well, that’s is my first person account narrative of what happened. Take a look at the video yourself.”

The video that Etty posted presents a new angle that appears to show Avery take a couple shots at Perry. It is unclear how this will affect the rest of Jane’s Addiction’s North American tour with Love and Rockets.

Update: Jane’s Addiction have issued a statement apologizing for the incident, and have canceled Sunday’s scheduled show in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

As of now, the tour is scheduled to resume Wednesday (September 18th) in Toronto, and run through an October 16th show in Los Angeles (with tickets to the upcoming shows available here).

See Etty Lau Farrell’s Instagram post with the new angle of the incident below.