JANE’S ADDICTION TO PULL “A LED ZEPPELIN” AND REUNITE FOR ONE SHOW ONLY

At least that’s what they claim. Or will they really pull a Led Zeppelin and decline to do a full tour after a wildly successful one-off reunion? We can only hope.

According to Brooklyn Vegan — and as we speculated earlier in the week — Jane’s Addiction are reuniting to play at the US NME Awards which will honor them with the prestigious “Godlike Genius Award.” What makes this reunion different from all previous Jane’s reunions? Original bassist Eric Avery will be in the fold after declining to participate in the late ’90s Jane’s reunion and the 2003 reunion which spawned the lackluster Bob Ezrin-produced album Strays and a headlining Lollapalooza appearance.

Does it really make that much of a difference whether Avery is involved? I’m sure to some die-hards it does, as I’m sure it also does to the band’s PR machine which will endlessly spin this as the first “all-original” reunion. But to me, not so much, big Jane’s Addiction fan as I am; if Perry are Dave are in the band, to me it’s Jane’s.

Anyway, will this one-off result in a following tour? Avery seems to indicate it won’t: “I’ve chosen to reject the prospects of reuniting in the past for personal and philosophical reasons. I have always considered reunions to be a way to make a quick buck, and it sells short my own experience of it the first time around. The reason I started to even consider this is because it’s honoring the past instead of trying to recreate it.”

Will the band stick to Avery’s word? We’ll see. For the sake of their legacy, I sure hope so; Strays already crapped upon that legacy, and the last thing we need is more diarrhea atop the pantheon of Jane’s Addiction.

-VN