NINies Come Out at Night, A NINtastic Weekend

In keeping with full disclosure I will tell you now that I’ve seen Nine Inch Nails perform on every tour over the last decade. Even though I have seen them before in their various incarnations, I can honestly say that this current lineup and show realizes Trent’s vision better than any other configuration before it.

Before I get into the details, lets backtrack for a moment to the beginning.

THURSDAY

(I decided I’m going to break down each day the way James Clavell does in his Asian Saga novels)

My NINtastic weekend began on the afternoon of Thursday September 22nd. Raven and I packed the night before and were ready to make the journey down to her. We bathed ourselves in the wonderful varieties and nuances of NIN originals and remixes on the way down. We had dinner with our friends Justin and Rima. As I announced in an earlier post they became engaged recently and will be celebrating their wedding on Oct. 22nd. My first impression of Rima was a profound sense of inevitably awesome!  I certainly hope Justin doesn’t fuck this one up. If he screws this one up he doesn’t deserve a good woman. I thought we had planned to go out for dinner but Rima surprised us with a home cooked sumptious Indonesia meal that had all the trimmings. The meal appearance and taste was a classy bit of gourmet cooking perfection. And even though we were celebrating their engagement, Justin gave us a really cool spare Wireless Router he happened to have on hand in exchange for the NIN ticket we’d purchased for him. We would have been happy with the cash, but I couldn’t help thinking how cool of a gesture that was. Once we obtain enough wireless network cards for our various clients he has agreed to come down and setup the new wireless network for us. Our schedules always seem to be in conflict, so I’m not sure if it will happen. ::crosses fingers::  

We spent Thursday evening at Raven’s mother’s house. It was nice. The kind of nice that is very cozy. Everything was great except for the uncooperative air mattress that gradually deflated over the course of the next ten hours. In order to keep my nocturnal schedule somewhat consistent I spent most of my late evening reading Hy Bender’s book The Sandman Companion : A Dreamer’s Guide to the Award-Winning Comic Series. Anyone who loves The Sandman comic series, or is a Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean fan in general should check it out. It is a very fascinating behind-the-scenes and subtextual look at the comic series that changed the landscape of of the comic and graphic novel worlds. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time but the time was never right or the book was hiding from us. Luckily we found it in the move before we left for our vacation.  The rest of my evening was spent playing Caesar III until my eyeballs became felt like two pissholes in the snow. Caesar III is an old and quaint game but I can’t help it, I love it. There is just something so relaxing about watching your little Roman citizens living their lives.

FRIDAY

We were able to catch up with her mother, stepfather, and grandmother over a nice breakfast of all natural Peach smoothies. ::yummy::  A quick trip to Raven’s sister’s home and we found her nephew Josh and his best friend Brad. They were pumped. Until this trip, Brad had never seen Nine Inch Nails live and didn’t quite know what to expect. Suffice to say, he was sufficiently pleased, shocked and awed. They guys were great. The trip up was your typical pre-show stuff. Lots of speculation, eager listening to songs and wry observations about the random absurd attractions to be found along the freeway. We were particularly perplexed by a gold plated Jesus statue in crucifixion pose that was perhed atop a column that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and unattached to any church or larger meaning. I couldn’t help but think of “like Jesus Christ on ecstasy” line from “Suck”.

So, we finally arrive in Seattle with just enough time to grab a quick sandwich. After lunch we decided to make our way over to the 1st Avenue Parking lot which is just down the street from the Key Arena. On our way over there we ended up stuck behind this big ass bus that wouldn’t for the life of us get out of our way. Later, we were amused to learn that it was in fact the NIN bus that we had been behind the whole time. As was such, by the time we arrived in line at The Spiral Fanclub entrance to obtain our tickets, we’d just missed the soundcheck invite by Trent for the first 20-40 people in line. It was unfortunate but we weren’t really down about it or anything. There was one other Premium Spiral fan though who was so uptight about missing the soundcheck that I truly thought that he might suffer an aneurysm or a heart attack. After a half an hour shooting the breeze with the various spiral members we were guided down the rear entrance of the Key Arena. It was here that we saw the NIN bus that was blocking our way earlier. Our suspicion was confirmed when Jeordie White (better known to the masses as Twiggy Ramirez) and Troy van Leeuwen (formerly of Failure and A Perfect Circle, currently touring with Queens of the Stone Age) and girlfriends walk up to the aformentioned bus. We were given a courtesy wave before they disappeared on board.

Inside they checked our tickets again. This time with a bar code scanner. The spiral members were seperated into two groups. Those whose tickets were General Admission, that is, they were on the floor, and those of us who chose sit in assigned seats. We were happy we chose the guaranteed sight lines that assigned seats afford. It was here that we met the shiny bald headed, funny and very patient head of security, Sweeney, whose job it was to sheperd everyone into the building while acting as a gracious host.

We were now in the Key Arena about a half an hour before the “official” opening of the doors, which was very nice. It afforded us the opportunity to check out the merch, check out the venue from various angles and get to know some of the other spiral fans in a less pressed environment. Onstage, the stagecrew was finishing the soundcheck for QOTSA and Autolux. Autoluz actually began performing five minutes before the scheduled 7 pm start time. I’m glad we heeded Trent’s words when he said to arrive early in order to catch all of Autolux’s set. I thought they were cool. Their set reminded me of Sonic Youth, particularly the artistic use of Amp distortion by singer and guitarist. Unfortunately the rest of the audience seemed to give nothing more than the most courtesy clap. As a drummer and percussionist myself I was particularly enjoying the groove laid down by their drummer, who just happens to be female. I’ve read some incredibly rude remarks about her online in other reviews and I can only say that honestly she kicked ass. Unlike most bands it was clear that she was the true focus of the band both musically and in the performance. She took the load gracefully I thought. I shudder to imagine how much pressure I would feel if I were opening for NIN. Some NIN fans can be quite unforgiving. They played for a half hour and I frankly enjoyed them more than Queens of the Stone Age.

Queens of the Stone Age came on after a fifteen minute set preparation. Their playing was tight but the mix was way off. Dynamics got lost somewhere. The song dynamics became somewhat binary. Either they were on, or they were completely off. If they were on then they were EXTREMELY loud, and if they were off it was completely silent. They suffered the same fate as Autolux when it came to the expectations of NIN fans. Josh Homme tried to counter this with some ballsy banter back and forth with the audience regarding Hot Dogs and where to shove them. It was funny at the time but it would lose its luster when we learned it was just a scripted response that he would use the next evening during the Portland Rose Garden show as well. I think they probably suffered the same fate as A Perfect Circle, back when APC opened on the Fragility 2.0 tour. Their visuals and stage presence was limited because of the vast Theatricality of the NIN show. I would imagine that they might sound better if the show as built around them. But for my money, I really don’t want to have to endure them at any future NIN concerts. I would have preferred to see the Dresden Dolls. I was saddened that they were only use on the mini tour this past spring. The highlights were seeing Troy Van Leeuwen perform again (We saw him perform with APC during Fragility 2.0) and subsequently that January when they did their own headlining tour. This was before their sound went south for the winter and never came back. It was particularly cool seeing him perform a few songs on the NORD Lead Synth as well as seeing him on bass for a tune while Alain Johannes (I think) playing guitar with Homme. Anyhow, QOTSA finally leaves the stage after 45 minutes of agression, sex, and annoyance.

NIN_lightining

As I’ve been to a NIN gig before I was hoping to watch the reaction of the boys to the opening of the NIN show, but unfortunately their tickets were twenty seats away from us. I was pleased that Trent gave us an updated version of PINION to open the set. Very cool. It made a bold declaration about how the set was going to go. The first song “Love Is Not Enough” was played entirely behind a thin translucent screen that would be used later as a projection screen (ala the Self Destruct tour when they projected visuals during “Hurt”, etc.) The buildup was great and served to really get the band and us pumped up. I think it also served a great purpose, it allowed Trent the opportunity to get in a groove and get used to the audience. We all know that he used to drink so much because he was trying to limit the amount of social phobia and anxiety he felt when he performed. This was a great way to get a song under their belt before facing us the audience, full on and eye to eye.

*spoiler warning* set list coming up

1. Pinion/Love is Not Enough

2. Wish

3. Terrible Lie

4. The Line Begins to Blur

5. March of the Pigs

6. The Frail/The Wretched

7. Closer

8. Burn

9. Gave Up

10. Eraser

11. Right Where it Belongs

12. Beside you in Time

13. You Know What You Are?

14. Sin

15. Only

16. “Not so Pretty Now”

17. Deep

18. Down in it

19. Hurt

20. The Hand that Feeds

21. Starf*ckers

22. Head Like a Hole

I consider us very fortunate to have enjoyed a performance of “Not So Pretty Now”. They didn’t play it the next night in Portland, and it appears they haven’t played it again on the tour recently. Please don’t flame me if I am wrong. If you got a chance to hear it, I am very happy for you. I thought it was interesting.

In related in music news…

Check out the new SMP video for their very cool song “This Perfect Day”.