[kj] (OT) Jane's Addiction Last Night..... or Not

[TB]

Great show.  At least from what I heard after the fact, it was.  Mike and I 
didn't get in.

It appeared to be a clusterfuck from the word "go." Apparantly, the La Cita 
club didn't have the proper wiring to support the band's gear so an 
electrician was called in early Thursday to do some quick-fix stuff. Fine, 
that was taken care of, but around 7pm, the LA Fire Marshall and some LAPD 
shows up and warned the bar owner that the place not only was going to hold 
only about 150 people, not around 400 like I think they thought they could 
cram in there, but that certain performance permits were needed or the show 
was off. The permit issue got resolved but no one thought to tell the people 
in the two growing lines outside that it was unlikely they'd get in even 
though the band's personal guest list of celebutards (which included Tom 
Morello, one of the Olsen twins and the lead dude from Entourage) was easily 
going to fill the bar on it's own.  Two lines had formed, one for the RSVP 
people which was basically our group of about 100 people that had either 
tenuous connections to people in the band on got on the "list," or people on 
the Jane's mailing list who e-mailed their name to a band rouster.  The 
other line was about 200 people who had simply heard of the show and hoped 
to get in.

I got there around 7pm and considering I was probably about 45 deep in the 
RSVP line, I figured I had a real good shot at getting in. One guy was 
willing to offer me $100 to go in with me but while I stood breathing over 
my shoulder, I called Mike and told him to rush his ass downtown if he 
wanted to see the show. He made it by around 8pm and for the next two hours, 
we and most of the others in the RSVP line which appeared to top off around 
100 people were pretty optimistic.

So around 10pm, several security guys and one weird fat bald dude in a gray 
tank top (who later turned out to be the bar owner - lol!) started bellowing 
to no one in particular that "sorry, no one gets in tonight, all full" and 
while the non-RSVP line thinned out very quickly as people left, the RSVP 
line stubbornely held about 60 people until the band showed up in a black 
van and went in through the back intrance about 10:15. The asshat security 
guys at the front door wouldn't even allow the doors to stay open so the 
people crowded at the entrence couldn't see inside and the sound was well 
muffled. At that point, Mike and I bailed. Apparantly only the first 14 
people in the RSVP line got in (inlcuding a couple hardy folk who slept on 
the sidewalk overnight) and about 20 people in the non-RSVP line got in and 
during the last two songs of the set, about 40 more people were let in. A 
*lot* of pissed of people left standing outside.

Quite honestly considering it was such a poorly kept secret, I was pretty 
surprised that the turnout was probably only about 300 people total outside 
the bar by about 9:45. I was honestly expecting real pandemonium when I got 
there and even when it was clear nobody was going to get in, there was more 
just nearly apathetic resignation, than any outright anger.

Well, after reading some of the breathless accounts of how great the show 
was, here's the setlist:

Up The Beach
Tripaway
Whores
1 Percent
Ain't No Right
Pigs in Zen
Ted Just Admit It
Oceansize
(encore)
Had a Dad
Been Caught Stealing

Here's a write up with photos:

http://buzzbands.la/2008/10/24/janes-addiction-delivers-the-goods-at-la-cita/

T.B.