A Jane’s Addiction reunion show in Boston didn’t go quite as planned. The gig ended early after frontman Perry Farrell bodychecked and appeared to attack guitarist Dave Navarro.

The show was deafeningly loud, and what was seen onstage was only part of the story. But what is clear is that while Navarro was soloing on “Ocean Size,” Farrell walked up to him from the front of the Leader Bank Pavilion stage at Boston’s Seaport and bodychecked him.

Navarro raised his arm to keep Farrell at bay as crew members and band founder Eric Avery walked over to Farrell to hold him back.

“There was clearly a lot of tension and animosity between the members,” Farrell’s wife Etty Farrell posted on Instagram after the show. “The magic that made the band so dynamic. Well, the dynamite had been lit. Perry was right in Dave’s face, controlling him.”

Etty Farrell said she posted her message to give a “first-hand account of what happened” to avoid speculation.

She wrote that Perry Farrell’s “frustration grew night after night” because the volume on stage was far too loud and he felt like “his voice was being drowned out by the band.”

“Perry suffered from tinnitus and a sore throat every night,” she wrote. “But when the front-row audience began to complain all the way up to Perry, cursing that the band was playing too loud and they couldn’t hear him, Perry lost his temper.”

She said he couldn’t hear beyond “the thump and the vibrations of the instruments and by the end of the song he was no longer singing but screaming to be heard.”

But some readers weren’t satisfied with Etty Farrell’s story when she brought in bassist Avery. She said that while everyone else was trying to de-escalate the situation, Avery ran upstairs in the dark “got Perry in a headlock and punched him three times in the stomach.” She said it was a “cheap shot.”

Some commentators accused Etty Farrell of getting her husband, who needed mental health help, into trouble and criticized her for blaming the sound crew or Avery for the situation.

One commenter said her story was “deranged gaslighting. Perry chose violence.”

This is a developing story.

Originally published: September 14, 2024 at 10:47 am