Now that !!TENSION!! 2013 is over and our minds have all been launched from the backs of our collective heads, it's time for some more reminiscing.
At this point (I know this thanks to the folks at NIN Tour History dot com - here's my profile), I've seen Nine Inch Nails thirteen times in as many years...and if you think that is an unreasonable amount, then I think you/d better get in touch with the guy who has seen them eighty nine times since 1990.
Anyway, while some shows have been more about the spectacle and some have been more about the music...uh...NINE INCH NAILS!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!! FUCKIN' TRENT!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!! NINE INCH NAAAAAAAAILS!!!!!!!
Fragility v2.0
My very first Nine Inch Nails concert took place in Philadelphia, PA at the Corestates Spectrum (although I think it was called the Union Spectrum back then). My now-wife, Christina, and I had received GA tickets from her mother as a gift. We showed up several hours early with dreams of being in the pit and close to the stage, maybe even up front!
Fuck our stupid, stupid thinking.
At that point in my life, I had seen Closure and the Fragility v1.0 special*, so I was pretty sure I knew what to expect, specifically that, at one point, a scrim would descend and some stuff would be projected on it.
Right on.
We ended up about ten feet from the stage and everything was cool.
Yeah, I was stoked, Nine Inch Nails, man. My very first time seeing one of my very favorite bands live.
Right on.
That's what I had held in the front of mind right up until the lights went out and Reznor started clawing at the semi-transparent, backlit curtain while a version of "The New Flesh" enveloped the audience. Then the curtain disappeared, as if by magic, and then I was screaming the lyrics to "Terrible Lie" with tears streaming down my face at Trent Reznor, who was about ten feet from me.
That blind, screaming, rapturous excitement was quickly replaced by the hands, arms, feet, fingers, boots and various other body parts of every. single. motherfucker. in the place, all of who, it appeared, were trying to climb inside my body in order to get just a tiny bit closer to Reznor.
That shit got real old, real quick. I was having trouble focusing on what was happening on the fucking stage because of all these freaks trying to kill one another in order to..what?...get up on stage? Touch Reznor? Suck Reznor?
I was beginning to think about leaving the pit right up until the end of "Gave Up", during which, instead of a scrim, three massive light panels began to come down from the ceiling.
I forgot about each and every one of the gibbering, snorting, sweating pigs around me and just bore witness.
After the third song utilizing the light panels, the crush of the aforementioned fucks provided to be too much for me and I had to get out of the pit.
I do not remember the rest of the show.
Every drop of liquid had been drawn out of my body by the people surrounding me.
Every article of clothing was completely soaked through with other people's sweat.
If I had been into that, this would have been a delicious trip to Bonerville, population me and everyone else's sweat.
But, as I don't like other people's sweat on me...it was not.
However, I was too goddamn exhausted to do anything about it.
My very first Nine Inch Nails concert, and I don't even remember the second half of it.
What a waste.
The next NIN show for me was their now legendary performance at Madison Square Garden, the one where Reznor brought Marilyn Manson up on stage halfway through "Starfuckers, Inc.", after which they did Manson's "The Beautiful People", but, as my friends, Lizzie, Morgan and I were only able to get tickets in, oh, the 300 or 400 section**, we didn't know why the fuck people were freaking out until the song started up again and Reznor sounded like he had swallowed a broken bicycle horn.
While it seems that being in the pit wasn't for me, neither was being six miles from the stage.
My third and final Fragility v2.0 show was when I discovered the sweet spot for all future NIN concerts: the soundboard. Where better to stand than exactly where the sound has to sound best?
Idiot.
Originally, my friend, Lisa, and I were going to try for a position closer to the stage (people in Lakeland, Florida are less violent and fucky than people in the City of Brotherly Go Fuck Yourself, Cracker, right?), but, when she got dizzy after A Perfect Circle, we decided to find a place with less of a crush and did so, right next to the soundboard.
As far as my ability to take in and enjoy the show, this was perfect. Plus, it was the first time I'd ever seen them play "The Fragile".
One downside was the two overweight goths who actually began to have intercourse during "Closer". It seems that the soundboard attracts more than just audiophiles...
Live: With Teeth***
Almost exactly five years to the day (off by two days) after my final Fragility show, and before I had the money as well as the understanding that Nine Inch Nails only tours every five fucking years and that I should have dismissed the fact that I didn't have the money and seen them two nights in a row, I attended the second of two club shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan, again, with my wife.
With Teeth had just come out and I was still dealing with the fact that it was not The Fragile.
I recall being bummed that, aside from only four tracks from the new album, two additional tracks from The Fragile and "Burn", that the setlist was almost identical to the three Fragility shows I'd seen.
I also recall that, about ten minutes before NIN hit the stage, some dude in front of me (I was against the back wall, about one foot below the VIP section of the balcony) looked at me and said, "David Bowie!"
I have gotten Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Trent Reznor (when people mistakenly thought it was him and not me in the music video for "Every Day Is Exactly The Same") and some wrestler whose name I do not, at the moment, remember. But never David Bowie.
People around this dude started turning and saying it as well.
I was very confused.
Then, I turned around and looked up...right at David Bowie.
I could have reached up and touched his foot, had I been so inclined (and into feet).
He noticed that people were noticing him, rose from his seat, smiled, waved and left.
Soon after the lights went out, I saw the door to the VIP section open and watched Bowie take his seat once again.
About halfway through the show, a dude stumbled up to me with a beer and screamed over the noise, "Hey! Can you hand this to David Bowie?!"
I politely yelled, "Do you really think that David Bowie is going to accept a beer passed up to him from the pit of a Nine Inch Nails concert?!"
The guy seemed to consider and then nodded, thanking me.
After the show, in the press of people, he came up to me and said that I had made a good point.
My evening was complete.
Next up, perhaps the best Nine Inch Nails experience I've ever had.
About six months later, at Madison Square Garden, my wife and I were let in early and not only got to see soundcheck (during which they played a song or two that did not appear later that evening on the setlist) but also got a meet and greet with the entire band. This was all thanks to The Spiral, the short-lived Nine Inch Nails official fan club.
I shared an awkward moment with Alessandro Cortini, was finally able to tell Twiggy Ramirez that my disgusting ex-roommate had once had a threesome with he and Manson (to which he responded, ".....cool") and had Trent Reznor inquire, "how fuckin' tall are you anyway?"****
Just FYI, Trent Reznor is a full foot shorter than me.
No joke.
The show itself was epic, the first time I'd seen them since their partnering with Moment Factory, the people responsible for the more jaw-dropping visual moments in Nine Inch Nails live history since the mid- 2000's.
They played eight tracks off With Teeth, more than half the album and brought back that scrim I had been expecting from Fragility v2.0, but had augmented it with some really nice fixed LED displays.
This was the first time that layers had been introduced to the Nine Inch Nails live show, with a back screen, the front scrim and the jagged LEDs.
As far as thematic cohesion, this show might win; although it wasn't as fancy and jam packed with astonishing feats of lighting like their later shows, this one all felt like it was part of a whole.
After this was the Summer amphitheater leg of the Live: With Teeth tour in Wantagh, Long Island and, as far as the experience was concerned, it was almost the exact opposite of MSG.
As I had before, I showed up early with my friend, Ray, in order to make sure we got a good spot for whatever Spiral-member-only thing we had waiting for us.
About eight hours early.
We were the second and third people there, respectively.
In the end, what this netted us was a pair of sunburns and early admittance to the merch and food stands...about ten minutes before everyone else.
I got a poster.
Did I mention that this was a ticketed show? With seats?
Well, it was.
And, although our tickets were "Spiral tickets", there were a whole bunch of non-Spirochetes with better seats.
This...was not my favorite Nine Inch Nails show ever.
Despite the lack of special treatment (no one's fault, they made it very clear that soundchecks and / or meet & greets are NOT guaranteed), the set was great, for the most part for the fans, featuring songs like "Help Me I Am In Hell", "La Mer" segueing into "Into The Void" (something ever NIN fan had wanted to hear since 1999), "Non-Entity", "Dead Souls" and "Down In It".
They'd also made some technical advances since 2005, adding a sort of faux interactivity to the show, which ended up being a foreshadowing of things to come.
Lights In The Sky
Holy fuck.
Why I didn't see more than one date on this tour...I will never know...brain damage?
Every time I walk out of a NIN show, I ask myself, "how are they going to top that?", and every fucking time, they do.
This was the first show after which I really had to start adding question marks to the end of that question.
This tour was in support of the three albums that had come out since 2005's With Teeth, and that period from 2007 to 2008 (which has come to be known as the Industrious Age of Nine Inch Nails) was represented beautifully in this thirty song set, half of which consisted of songs never played before.
This is what a Nine Inch Nails show should be: groundbreaking visuals combined with an abundance of new material...and one that doesn't conclude with "Hurt" or "Head Like A Hole".
If you boil all my bitching and venomous little words about Nine Inch Nails live shows into one sentence, that is it.
LITS delivered that in dump trucks full of spades.
It was chock full of visual (the "static" motif for "Only", introduced back in 2005) and musical (the rebuilding of "Piggy") evolution and just holy fuck.
The only drawback one might point out (if one could even call this a drawback) is the same drawback one could point out with their most recent tour: the lack of a singular theme connecting everything together.
But...dude...check it out.
NIN/JA Tour*****
Having learned from my past mistakes, Chris and I bought tickets for both New York area shows, namely, Long Island and Holmdel. Out of the 38 songs performed, only 8 were played both nights.
As this was a far less technically demanding tour than LITS, they were free to mix the set up more than ever before and it was fantastic. Over the two nights, they played more than half of The Downward Spiral, which was a highlight for me, specially those tracks I'd never seen live before, as well as hearing "The Way Out Is Through" live, something I was not expecting. While the first night was solid, the seats weren't great and the sound was a bit off, but the second night, we were almost dead center about ten rows back and it was glorious.
Overall, a bit under produced for my liking, I really do love the spectacle, but I can't argue with the variety.
Wave Goodbye
On the whole, these two (at Terminal 5) were more about being there than the shows themselves.
Does that sound strange?
The sets both nights had a lot more overlap than the two NIN/JA shows, although they did play 23 more songs over these two nights, and we had Peter Murphy drop in as well...although I'm certain there wasn't a person there who wouldn't have eaten Peter Murphy alive in exchange for Bowie showing up in his place.
I still remember the buzz that went through the crowd when we saw that second mic getting set up, and, when Reznor introduced and started playing "I'm Afraid Of Americans", there was an audible hum of anticipation in the audience.
The first night, our dumb asses thought that the pit might not be so bad this time around, and it totally wasn't until Nine Inch Nails started playing music. At that moment, just as nine fucking years prior, every person in the room seemed to want to be inside me. At the start of the fifth song, "March of the Pigs", I literally clawed my way out, and, while I wasn't completely unconscious like I was after my first pit experience, I was way over to the right and couldn't really enjoy the rest of the show.
The next night, I went with Ray and we decided to say fuck the ground floor altogether and ended up dead center on the balcony, just over the soundboard. The location was great and hearing the "Piggy" remix, "Gone, Still" and "Lights In The Sky" (despite Trent utterly fucking up the lyrics to that last one) were great, but, yeah, something wasn't clicking for me.
I should probably mention that, the next morning, I awoke with the worst case of the flu I'd had in years.
I dubbed it the NINfluenza and laughed, quietly, in my death bed, while sucking ice chips.
Then, four years later, my dick and balls were blown out the back of me by !!TENSION!!!!!1!!, my account of which you can read here.
And, I am overjoyed to announce that, just last week, Reznor informed Zane Lowe that the "Tension" show they taped at the Staples Center in L.A. will be getting released in early 2014, hopefully packaged with the deluxe reissue of The Fragile YOU FUCKING MONSTERS WILL YOU RELEASE THAT FUCKING THING ALREADY YOU FUCKING GODDAMN ASSHOLESAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!1!!!!
Sorry.
So, what have I learned or taken from or whatever from my thirteen Nine Inch Nails shows over the past thirteen years?
Mainly that "Wish", "March of the Pigs", "Hurt" and "Head Like A Hole" have been played at every single one.
They Might Be Giants
And speaking of talking about concerts for too long a period of time...I had a wonderful time with some friends at the first First Album Show since, if I am correct in my math, over twenty years.
First things first, I think I'm over "The Mesopotamians".
Wait...have I already said that?
Hm.
Well, I'm more over "The Mesopotamians" now.
And, I've decided that, during all subsequent performances of "Damn Good Times", I'm just going to scream as if I am in hell.
Good?
Good.
Moving on.
While it was really excellent to hear a lot of the first album, a few tracks stood out and I would love to see them slipped into future set lists, such as "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" (which rocked so hard), "Rhythm Section Want Ad" (I love the band break down. Something about this song is even better now that the band has a rhythm section) and "Everything Right Is Wrong Again".
It was also good to see Flans still has his mad harmonica skillz on "32 Footsteps", as well as hear "She's An Angel" and "James K. Polk" after all these years.
I still think their 2013 Celebrate Brooklyn show wins for best recent TMBG show, but, again, it was great to relive some of the oldies.
Next time, let's get that John Henry show going...with horns...
Additionally, the second of Alessandro Cortini's Forse trilogy, Forse 2, came out this month and I have a steamy little review of that coming soon.
In a nutshell, if you liked the first one, you'll like the second one, and, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you'll probably dig the third one as well when it comes out in early 2014.
And, finally, the new tweaker remix album, And Then There's Nothing was released just last week, the review for which will be posted here later this week, although, if you are boiling with curiosity and apprehension, you can read an edited version on Amazon.
Next month, we'll address my Bitchwish list for 2013 and my Bitchwish list for 2014.
FUNNN!!!
*About 40,000 times
** Closer to the moon than the stage
*** The second silliest sounding name for a NIN tour I've ever heard...not that it wasn't apt, it was a tour on which they played songs from the album With Teeth...live...it just sounds silly if you tell someone that's what you did over the weekend: "Oh, you know, saw 'Live: With Teeth'."
As opposed to what? "Dead: With Teeth"? "Live: Without Teeth"?
**** This remains, to this day, the only time I've ever been 100% cool with someone asking that question
***** No, not that kind of ninja, the kind you get when you combine the first letters of Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction...gaijin dog.
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