Live Nuggets • JamFest

Halloween 1997: Jane’s Addiction Turns a New York Ballroom Into a Dreamscape and Goes Live on MTV

Tonight on Live Nuggets • Jane’s Addiction • October 31, 1997 • Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY

Some reunion shows feel like a victory lap. This one felt like a costume party that happened to be on television. When Jane’s Addiction played the Hammerstein Ballroom on Halloween night in 1997, the first thirty minutes served as the premiere episode of MTV’s Live From the 10 Spot, which put a band known for chaos in front of a national audience in real time. The broadcast cut out at “Three Days,” but the room kept going, and tonight Live Nuggets plays the whole night.

The lineup was built for the occasion. Perry Farrell on vocals, Dave Navarro on guitar, and Stephen Perkins on drums were joined by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, who filled in on bass for the reunion run. The shows came during the brief tour known as Relapse, and the energy of that moment, a band reuniting on its own terms with a bassist from another legendary group, gave the whole night a once-only feel.

The venue itself was part of the performance. The oversold ballroom, with a capacity of around 3,700, was transformed into a surreal dreamscape decorated with massive crepe paper flowers, metallic streamers, and strands of bare lightbulbs. The crowd matched the mood, with costumes that ranged from Pez dispensers to hypodermic needles, and Farrell took the stage in gravity defying braids and a shimmering cowboy suit. Early in the set, Navarro whipped off a devil’s cape to reveal a bare, tattooed torso and tore into the heavy riffs while costumed dancers filled the stage and the balconies.

The moment people still talk about came during “Summertime Rolls.” Farrell left the main stage and moved to a small, isolated platform built right in the middle of the standing crowd, where he sang alone among the fans, a raw and vulnerable contrast to the thunder around it. At another point, the band stunned the audience by playing part of “Jane Says” from the theater’s balcony levels. The setlist drew heavily from the band’s two masterpiece albums, Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual.

Thirty minutes made it onto television. The rest of the night belonged to the room, and tonight it belongs to you.