Jane’s Addiction cancels tour in wake of onstage fracas

Alternative rock band Jane’s Addiction has cancelled its latest tour following an onstage scuffle between lead singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro.

“The band have made the difficult decision to take some time away as a group. As such, they will be cancelling the remainder of the tour,” the band said in a brief statement on Monday.

The move comes a few days after videos captured Farrell lunging at Navarro at a concert in Boston on Friday, bumping Navarro with his shoulder before taking a swing at the guitarist with his right arm.

Navarro was seen holding his right arm out to keep Farrell away before Farrell was dragged away by others on stage. The show ended shortly after and the band apologised.

The band is known for edgy, punk-inspired hits Been Caught Stealing and Mountain Song in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the alternative rock and grunge music movements were growing.

“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,” Etty Lau Farrell, Farrell’s wife, wrote in an Instagram post Saturday morning.

She said her husband had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat and “by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just to be heard”. She said her husband later broke down “and cried and cried”.

The band’s Imminent Redemption tour started in early August and was to end on October 16 at the YouTube Theatre in Los Angeles.