Out of all the hundreds of bands that have ever played a Lollapalooza stage, one stands out as the act that literally put the festival on the map: Jane’s Addiction. After all, it was frontman Perry Farrell who dreamed up Lolla in the first place — with the very first edition serving as Jane’s Addiction’s 1991 farewell tour. Talk about going out on a high note. During their initial run, Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, bassist Eric Avery and drummer Stephen Perkins set fire to the Los Angeles club scene and soon after the entire alternative rock world with three provocative, genre-smashing landmark albums: 1987’s Jane’s Addiction, ’88’s Nothing’s Shocking and ’90’s Ritual de lo Habitual. With instant classics like “Stop,” the epic “Three Days” and the MTV-embraced “Been Caught Stealing,”Ritual (and that first Lolla jaunt) put Jane’s in prime position for a serious breakout of the alternative nation and into the mainstream — but the band imploded instead. Since then, there’s been lots of music by Jane’s boys — from band projects like Porno for Pyros, Deconstruction, Banyan, the Panic Channel and Satellite Party to various solo albums — and even a couple of almost-all-there reunion jaunts, most recently in 2003 (when the band, sans Avery, released a brand new album, Strays). But it wasn’t until last year that all four original members hooked up again, with bassist Avery back in the fold for the first time in 17 years. What the future holds is anyone’s guess, but as the April release of the box set A Cabinet of Curiosities and the band’s Lollapalooza homecoming both make clear, 2009 is a shockingly great year to be a Jane’s Addiction fan.
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