NIN/JA 2009

Hey guys, I am no Lester Bangs, but here is a review I wrote for the Jane's show I worked in Santa Barbara last night.  I know they are coming your way soon.  NIN alternate with them as to who cloese the show, and I lucked out and caught them on a Jane's night.  Enjoy.

 

Three Days
Whores
Ain't No Right
...and She Did
Mountain Song
Been Caught Stealin'
Ted, Just Admit it
Ocean Size
Summertime Rolls
Stop
Jane Says

In 1988 I was fifteen and my two favorite bands were Guns'N Roses and Pink Floyd. When "Nothing's Shocking" came out I found it in the Record Town at Aviation Mall and bought it without ever hearing a song, just on the strength of the cover art and a review I had read in Rolling Stone. The vast sense of space, the atmospherics and the primal urgency seemed to me the perfect marriage of psychedelia and sleaze.  In the next year I smoked my first joint and lost my virginity: Jane's was the soundtrack for both events. I distinctly remember the sensation of floating while listening to "Summertime Rolls" and then coming down the mountain. The songs on the album melded together seemlessly and had such power and depth, blending together an Appetite for Destruction with the Delicate Sound of Thunder.  And the subject matter: these were not only lyrics but poems printed on colorful sheets of sound. Rock and Roll's "Leaves of Grass."
In 1991 I was in college and had the chance to see them on the Ritual de lo Habitual Tour, and then again later that summer for Lollapalooza, their farewell.  Too much time has passed for me to recall many details of either performance, but I do remember that being there and being a fan, being in that crowd and into that music made me feel a part of something bigger than myself, not so much of a movement, but that there were others out there like me and together without knowing it we were fomenting a change.  Jane's made bands like Nirvana and The Flaming Lips possible and ushered in a new sense of music as something redemptive and artistic, far beyond the party soundtrack hair-metal that had been the mainstream MTV and radio staples of the time.  But enough has been written about that time and Jane's significance.  Let's fast forward twenty years:
Lollapalooza is no more. Perry's Porno for Pyros and Satellite Party, his solo vehicles, lacked the "sum is greater than the parts" combined power that JA was able to summon. Navarro took over the guitar duties in RHCP for a little while, but we all know that that is the real-life equivalent of drumming for Spinal Tap.  Jane's had a few "relapses" in the late nineties and early 2003, but again it was more like celebrating an anniversary than breaking new ground. Eric Avery left for a long time, occasionally to be replaced by Flea (who played horns on Nothing's Shocking's Idiot's Rule).  Stephen Perkins had no shortage of work, but never transitioned into anything as high profile, like Matt Cameron was able to do with Pearl Jam after Soundgarden broke up.  Navarro has married and divorced Carmen Electra, hosted two seasons of "Rock Star" and written a book about his addiction to heroin.  Perry turns fifty this year.
The NIN/JA tour came to Santa Barbara, reuniting two of the highlights from the original Lollapalooza lineup.  I was never a big NIN fan and completely missed their set.  When I got to the venue for my 9:30 union call Jane's was plowing through ..And She Did, the companion piece to Ritual's epic Three Days. The band was flanked by two towering silhouettes of headless naked women, obscured occasionally by a marine layer of thick fog and then illuminated by more lights than a high-school football field.  A shirtless Navarro, with nipple rings resplendant, worked the crowd at stage right, often stepping out over the line of monitors to play from the lip of the stage, mouthing the words along with Perry, tossing picks into the crowd in the most magnamimous of Rock Star gestures and chatting up every lithesome female in the orchestra pit.  With his Toreador pants, tattoos and a succesion of snap shot worthy stage poses, I found it hard to picture these guys ever playing dingy bars like the Roxy with the same arena rock bombast.  But it was always Jane's (or Perry's) mission to bring their music to a larger audience, so perhaps "sell-out" is not an appropriate term, but you really can't call them "indie" or "alternative". I guess I was just surprised at the level of "professional showmanship" that Farrell and Navarro seemed so eager to provide. 
I entered from the back rows and watched them finish and then launch into Mountain Song. The crowd seemed to really come alive at that moment and I saw a man my age with a son who was about tweleve hug each other and then begin a two (or one and a half) man mosh pit.  Avery and Perkins were locked in, with the droning no-frills bass line establishing a rock solid foundation for Navarro to (sigh) exactly duplicate every single note on the record. Not that you could ever accuse Jane's of being a Jam Band, but one thing that always disappointed me about thier live shows was the tendency to slavishly echo their recordings.  I always felt you went to a see live music to watch the artists push the envelope and expand upon the progressions and structures of the studio version: not so with these guys.  The only indication that you weren't watching a very expensive karaoke show was Farrell and his fifty year old pipes.  While he danced like a stripper and whirled like a dervish, when it came time to sing he couldn't seem to reach the notes in his original phrasing, and often strayed into a lower register seeming to be strugling for the breath to pierce through the din of his band mates. Sometimes he seemed even content to let the audience carry the tune.
But carry the tune they did, for regardless of the obvious passage of years, these songs had lost none of their power, nor their emotional resonance with the audience. Drawing only from their first three albums, completeley ignoring 2003's Strays - an elongated soundtrack to a Ford Explorer commercial - each one was an anthem to be savored and celebrated, a prayer that was being recited en masse. I took a position behind a monitor on Navarro's side of the stage and looking out into the crowd, every face was painted with rapture and every mouth was singing along. Perry spoke to the audience, expressing his appreciation for the great surf in Santa Barbara and then asked for every one to join him in counting "three, four!" As Navarro snuck in with the opening chords of "Ocean Size" I felt every hair on my body stand up and my eyes begin to tear.  As we all began to sway and nod our heads to the pulsating replication of a breaking wave, with the twinkling lights of oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel visible in the distance, one of the most powerful and life affirming sensations came over me.  It was the feeling of being completely in the moment, of thankfulness and appreciation for every circumstance, positive or negative, that had brought me in my life's journey to this place, this time.  In that instance I was able to rescind any complaint, forgive any greivance and transcend any transgressions I had felt up to now, for at that moment all my wishes had been fulfilled and I was Ocean Size.  After twenty years it was great to have that feeling back.  I would like to thank my wife for watching the kids for night and giving me the opportunity.  It's hard for me to believe that I even got paid to be there (easier when I think of the eight tractor trailers we loaded until 1 AM) because I would have done it for nothing.  Would I have paid to go?  No, not for only ninety minutes.  But if you like NIN, too, then you won't be disappointed.