Nine Inch Nails

It’s an odd match up, this line-up. Neck to neck with Trent Reznor’s brutishly empassioned masculinity place Perry Farrell’s swaggering campness and his band’s circus freakshow. If Nine Inch Nails is the sound of a meticulously polished boot stamping on the human ear for the rest of eternity, then Jane’s Addiction is the last party on judgement day, or, by the way the crowd reacts, 40 minutes in purgatory.

And given Perry and co’s ramshackle nature, it’s perhaps fitting that I’m running late and miss the start of their set. But considering that the morning before I had resigned myself to missing one of my favourite bands mining the reformation seam, I’m not complaining. Except, wait, I am. Because the bastards only went and opened with 'Three Days', followed by 'Whores' and then left me scrambling for my seat to catch the last echoes of 'Classic Girl'. So screw you Stephen Perkins, Eric Avery and Dave Navarro. And especially screw you, Perry Farrell.

Except he’d probably like that, the way he’s prancing and shimmying around like Bowie at his most androgynous, purring and preening at the crowd. Only they’re not having too much of it – vacant Reznorites nodding their heads appreciatively but not exactly getting into the swing of things. And all while I’m stuck in the rafters yelling along to ‘Oceansize’.

Musically, the band are as tight as ever. Eric Avery’s return to the fold means that his looping bass is added once more, his thick strings never sounding better than during 'Stop!', as the band appreciatively cut out and let him have his moment. Perkins seems to still remember why he was touted as the best rock drummer since Stewart Copeland, and there’s little to be said about Dave Navarro. I mean, the guy sleeps in a coffin and had his way with Carmen Elektra, so who really cares if his guitar work is as wilfully and brilliantly wayward as ever?

But there’s a certain sense of a band ‘warming up’ rather than firing on all cylinders: the reduced stage space and the lack of any supporting ‘firepower’, plus the rather cold crowd (probably deriding the band as hippies) gives the whole thing a stifled feel. Naturally, I don’t care. They play ‘Mountain Song’; Navarro pirouetting and sending solos screaming into nothingness, before the radio friendly scratch of 'Been Caught Stealing' finally gets the crowd going. Perry Farrell yells and hollers about people wanting to fuck each other in rubber suits, before launching into 'Ted, Just Admit It…', which brings me to my feet, screaming "SEX! IS! VIOLENT!" and mortally irritating the sourfaced square sat next to me.

Yet I can’t help feel sad to see Navarro come on stage before a heart warming 'Jane Says' encore and having to get the crowd riled up to cheer Farrell back on. But as the two sit shoulder to shoulder on the front of the stage, the dull despair evaporates, and I thank the kind soul who relinquished their ticket to me for free for giving me my 40 minutes in purgatory.