Tuesday night at the Erwin Center, it was time to party like it was 1991.
Sure it’s a cliche, but a cliche is just an idea that you’ve heard many times before. Trent Reznor, aka Nine Inch Nails, has been putting out records for 20 years. The original Jane’s Addiction line-up — front-wiggler Parry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and returning bassist Eric Avery — started playing together during the Reagan administration.
This was a chance for more than 10,000 people at the Erwin Center to relive their youth or college years. It was a chance for some to see a couple of the architects of modern rock right there in front of them.
Nine Inch Nails took the stage after a brief set from Street Sweeper Social Club, the new project from Coup rapper Boots Reily and Rage Against the Machine axe-man Tom Morello. This was NIN stripped down to a four-piece industrial rock steam engine. Reznor looked buff as the band thrashed through 90 minutes of the occasional hit (“Terrible Lie, “Sin,” “The Hand That Feeds”) and a whole mess of rarities (“The Way Out is Through,” “Survivalism,” “La Mer”).
Closing with “Head Like a Hole,” it was pretty easy to imagine it actually was 1991, even with newer songs. Reznor’s lyrical topics haven’t changed much over the years — control, fear, anger, control, struggle, control, weakness and did I mention control? He even paid homage to his roots with a Joy Division cover, “Dead Souls.”
Speaking of, Jane’s Addiction is a band that looks downright extraordinary on paper — Joy Division’s melodic, ovoid bass lines welded to Led Zeppelin’s classic rock. On album, well, the original 1988 review of “Nothing’s Shocking” in Rolling Stone (a co-review with Randy Newman’s “Land of Dreams!”) put it best: “the band is great, and it is also full of (expletive) — often at the same time.” That never, ever changed.
Live, on the other hand, Jane’s was a force of nature, Farrell’s frontman-as-shaman shtick pushing against music full of wide open spaces, classic rock pomp, and a little too much of the Doors’ Los Angeles voodoo.
Perkins, always the good matured one, still drums like he’s wielding Thor’s hammer,driving the music to swing as hard as it charges. Avery, the musical anchor for much of the early material, paced like a caged lion, Navarro remained shirtless. (Does that guy even own shirts anymore?)
The 10-minute opener “Three Days” acted as a rally point for fans and a signal to remaining folks there just to see NIN that it was good time to leave.
Farrell, 50 years old this March and clad in tights under some sort of black kimono thing, started out a tad gingerly on a leg he had injured the concert before. But he acquitted himself well, dancing and grooving (“Whores,” “1%,” “Summertime Rolls”) and leaping when the music just demanded it (the anthemic “Mountain Song,” “Pigs in Zen”). But he couldn’t resist Borscht Belt song transitions (“I went to thift store, put on some clothes and walked right out the door” before “Been Caught Stealing” - oy!), nor could he resist shouting out C3 and Charles Attal twice to plug Lollapalooza, moments I’m sure were as embarrassing for Attal as they were for us.
That said, an encore of “Summertime Rolls,” “Stop!” and “Jane Says” sealed a deal that seemed a lock from the show’s first notes: Are they great? Sure. Full of (expletive)? Oh yes. A live powerhouse? Still.
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