For once, I got to stay in The O.C. and not go to Los Angeles for a concert!  People who don’t live in the Southern California area probably don’t understand the difference though.  Yesterday I arrived at Doheny State Beach at around 4:50PM for the Doheny Days Festival in Dana Point and caught most of Jimmy Eat World’s set.  Entertaining enough performance for a pop punk band, but I was there for Jane’s Addiction.  Once Jimmy Eat World ended I moved up front, and ended up in the front row dead center.  Before Jane’s came on I talked to some people, I met one guy who saw Jane’s in the late 80’s in a club, in 2003 on the Lollapalooza tour, then in 2011 on Jimmy Kimmel Live.  I met another who hadn’t seen the band live since the 1991 Lollapalooza tour.  My resume isn’t quite near there’s, but I did see the original Jane’s Addiction lineup in May 2009 when they toured with Nine Inch Nails.  I also met a group of teenagers, even a few years younger than me, who were pumped up to see Jane’s Addiction and seemed to know their rock.  Right next to me was a father and his teenage son, the father said he couldn’t drag any of his other kids to concerts.  I told him I have the opposite problem: I can’t get my Dad to go to shows with me anymore.  My father bailed on going to Eddie Vedder’s show in Long Beach with me last year, a seated show, due to “sleeping problems.”  Pearl Jam are his favorite band, I still made the show but I realized he’s too much of an old fart (at 50, not that old, so mentally I guess) to go to shows any more.  I also met a girl at the show who had never heard of Jane’s Addiction (she was won over by the end of the night) who is a big Alice In Chains fan

Anyways, onto the actual show!  Jane’s Addiction went on at around 7:55PM or so, very promptly (take notes if reading this Scott Weiland) and kicked off the show with Underground, my favorite song off of their latest album The Great Escape Artist.  Going into the show I was a bit nervous because I’ve seen live videos of Jane’s performing new songs live with backing vocals tracks during choruses (namely End to the Lies and Irresistible Force) but Perry didn’t use any on Underground or any other new songs performed.  I think they chose the right new songs to play (Underground, Twisted Tales, Splash A Little Water On It).  They’re all better songs than End to the Lies and Irresistible Force, and they didn’t come off like piss breaks.  They added to the show, the vibe during the Pink Floydesque Splash A Little Water On It was great.  Twisted Tales comes off better live than it does on The Great Escape Artist.

Ain’t No Right really kicked the show into high gear.  The band had preceded it with hits (Mountain Song and Just Because) which got the crowd really into the show, and Ain’t No Right really picked up the intensity.  The band stripped things down for Jane Says and Chip Away.  Jane’s Addiction have historically tended to end their shows with Jane Says, so it was a nice change of pace to see it in the middle of the show.  After Jane Says, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins came onstage to perform the tribal themed Chip Away with the band.  Chip Away is really such a unique song live due to the members all playing tribal drums during the song, with Hawkins there as well it was just fantastic.

I thought the setlist was the perfect mix of songs from throughout the band’s career.  You had the old classics and hits from Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual, but you also had new material off of The Great Escape Artist and two songs off of Strays.  Price I Pay was a big surprise, the band just recently started performing it live for the first time since 2003 and it was one of the highlights of the night.  Three Days, Ocean Size, and Stop were performed near the end of the show and the crowd went nuts during these, lots of crowd surfing.  Three Days is just epic live.  I thought the show was over after Stop, but Perry talked about how the summer was over now and the band closed the show with Summertime Rolls.  Overall this was a great show, I had my reservations going in since this show was sans original bassist Eric Avery, who was with the band when I saw them in 2009, but this show was just as great as the 2009 show I saw.  Being front row probably helped, but while Chris Chaney is no Eric Avery on stage presence wise he is a great bassist.  Dave Navarro and Stephen Perkins delivered like they always do, and Perry did not perform the ‘lounge act’ versions of Jane’s Addiction songs like he has been criticized for doing in recent years.  The crowd were blown away, I heard one guy say they sounded even better than when he’d seen them in the past and all of the feedback just seemed very positive coming out of the show.

Here are some photos I took at the show.

Setlist:
Underground
Mountain Song
Just Because
Been Caught Stealing
Ain’t No Right
Twisted Tales
Jane Says
Chip Away
Up The Beach
Price I Pay
Three Days
Splash A Little Water On It
Ocean Size
Stop!
Summertime Roles

Some songs are probably out of order but those are the songs they played.