A Simple Experiment Goes Well
Butthole Surfers are a better Shroom Band than Jane's Addiction
By Preston Peet (Originally published in the New York Waste, Nov. 2001)

I was reading Melbomene Whitehead’s Subderma column in the October issue of the New York Waste one lazy Thursday afternoon, enthralled with her vivid account of patriotic bra shopping, when I came to her declaration of the unsuitability of wearing a certain bra to the upcoming Butthole Surfers’ concert.

I immediately threw down the Waste as I leapt to my feet.

"V," I exclaimed, "Butthole Surfers are playing next week, and I’m going to get tickets right now." And I did.

Upon waking the next morning, what should I find on my computer keyboard but a confirmation note saying that 2 Jane’s Addiction tickets were in the process of heading our way.

Jane’s Addiction tickets? What?

Sure enough, seems that while at work V heard about a Jane’s Addiction show at Madison Square Garden the very next Monday, October 15th, just a weekend away, and managed to hook us tickets.

Holy shit, two of my all time favorite bands, (among an uncountable multitude really), and they were playing the same week, and we were going to see them both.

In the interests of science, I decided to undertake a seriously controlled experiment, to see which band was a better show to see on shrooms.

The night of Jane’s, I was a bit nervous about entering the stadium, what with the heightened security after Sept. 11 in some of the city. We arrived, and found a short line that gave us little stress even with a halfhearted pocket patting by a guard. Another guard, as we were putting keys and the like back in our pockets, pointed out our Axel jewelry and asked a superior if "the rings are ok." Despite a drop of my stomach, and a quick visual of us trying to track down our rings after the show tripping our butts off, the rings were inspected and sanctified then we were in.

We unfortunately missed the first band, Fema Kuti, but caught Live.

God, they sucked.

That said, right after the shrooms were ingested, Live played a decent cover of Imagine, so they did set a nice tone and vibe to our trip.

By the time Jane’s played, we were off.

Lasers, nearly naked dancing women and men, flashing lights, cool stage show, it was a fantastic sold out event. The only major fault was that the sound system at the Garden made Perry Farrell almost inaudible in parts, and was never that good throughout the night. Dave Navarro’s guitar playing was impeccable as always.

The best part of the show was Steve Perkin’s drumming, and smoking him out, along the bass player of Fema, and one of Jane’s performance dancers at the after party at Lotus Club on Manhattan's 14th Street, where both Farrell and Moby were spinning records.

Gotta say, I was a bit disappointed in the music at the after party, but all in all, a great night.

Seeing Jane’s on shrooms was going to be hard to beat.

I saw Butthole Surfers play the first Lollapalooza tour, at the Orlando Fairgrounds, back in whatever year that was, 1990 I think. Buttholes played early in the afternoon, right after Rollin’s Band. I was too preoccupied trying to score acid to really pay attention, which goes to show it wasn’t really grabbing me. Later in the day, Gibby Haines carried Trent Resnor on stage and throw him through the drum kit during Siouxsie and the Banshee’s set.

Having heard that Butthole Surfers were much better in a club setting, I was ready to see and hear for myself.

Arriving at the WWF World theater at 43rd and Broadway over an hour early, we took a seat in a back corner with our beverages, and a peanut butter sandwich to help the shrooms go down, and proceeded to imbibe.

I didn’t catch the name of the opening act, a guy who mixed off two desktop computers. He kept it up for a solid 45 minutes at least, extremely difficult listening music that at times had me looking for, but not finding, cover. He did mix in Sweet Leaf at one point, which was pretty cool.

Steve Wishnia from High Times and I shared a smoke to further prime ourselves for the main event.

Finally, the moment arrived, and Butthole Surfers hit the stage. V almost immediately decided she wanted to see better, and I couldn’t blame her with a 7 and a half foot tall bald guy having planted himself directly in front of her, so we moved up onto higher ground.

Playing a mix of old and new, the band set out to utterly destroy whatever chances Jane’s had in my little experiment. I was more than satisfied to find that despite niggling fears the show might be a repeat of the horrible Violent Femmes show we’d subjected ourselves to some months back, (or how I imagine seeing the Rolling Stones live now would be, you know, the old foggies running around onstage kinda thing) the Butthole Surfers have not let whatever their age is slow them down one teeny bit.

They Flat Out Fucking Rocked.

With lots of naked butts and bloody surgery film clips being played behind and on them, the show was simple and brutally brilliant. Gibby’s got this voice modulator thing he stood beside the whole show warping his voice out, and the guitar, double bass, and drums were so right on. Just a great fucking show.

Whether it was the stadium vs. fairly small club setting, the lousy vs. loud as hell and clear as a bell sound system, or the fact that the Butthole Surfers simply rocked harder than Jane’s Addiction did I’m not sure. Both shows were incredible in their own right, and I’m glad we made it to them both, but the prize, as sacrilegious though it may sound to some, goes to the Butthole Surfers, who were above and beyond a way better show on shrooms than were Jane’s Addiction.