CBGB’s Music & Film Festival 2014 – Emmerson

This year’s CBGB’s Music & Film Festival ended with a raucous performance at Times Square by Jane’s Addiction, who put the sleaze back into the fabled hood. Turning back the hands of time to an era when porn palaces, hustlers and junkies shared the streets with wide-eyed tourists, New York native Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro were like two bad boys up there reveling in the naughty, playful decadence that the band seethed.

Beginning with “Up The Beach” and ending with “Stop!” they took the crowd on a sonic trip back to the ’90s and had the plug pulled out from them just as they were about to start playing their final encore, “Three Days.”

The night before, they played two songs and were handed the icon award at CBGB’s Fest headquarters, Center 548, by Devo members Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh, who also played Sunday at Times Square.

On Friday night, Devo showed up at the screening of their new “work in progress” Hardcore Devo Live! at Cinema East. The beautiful photographed and edited film dedicated to Devo guitarist Bob Casale, who left us this year, documents the band’s recent tour and is interspersed with interviews; however, it left us with that burning question, whatever happened to those crazy hats?