3 posts tagged “nine inch nails”
"Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve."
Head Like A Hole - Nine Inch Nails
I admit it; for all of my griping about my last Nine Inch Nails show, the announcement of the NIN/JA tour and Trent's ominous "after this, Nine Inch Nails is going away indefinitely" blog had me glued to my computer on presale day, determined not to miss what might be my last chance at seeing a band that shaped my musical landscape from my teens forward. As much as I like to think that Trent's choice of words indicates that he will continue to make music, albeit released from the box of expectations associated with the NIN brand, I fear Trent has grown tired of the bullshit of the industry and fickle fans unwilling to embrace anything new. This astonishes me, as I'm of the opinion that The Slip was one of Trent's strongest albums to date; it delivered hard rocking tracks with biting lyrics, danceable tracks for nights at the rock club, and haunting melancholy pieces. Its one weakness perhaps is Corona Radiata, which isn't terrible, but is not up to par with other instrumental works he's done.
With this tour, a co-headliner with the reunited original line-up of Jane's Addiction, Trent has been treating fans to more varied sets night to night, a ban on the omnipresent Closer (a shame, since there are other songs far more in need of retirement, like Hurt), and breaking out songs that have been scarcely/never seen live. With minimal instrumental tracks, a plain stage show without visual effects typical for NIN tour set-ups and NIN NOT headlining, it was a very different animal from recent tours. That said, I'd have to declare this the best of the three shows I've seen.
This show, with a few set insertions/switches (Somewhat Damaged in lieu of March of the Pigs; The Wretched in lieu of I Do Not Want This; Dead Souls in lieu of Burn, which I love but have heard), was custom-designed from my dreams. Sure, I could have easily embraced other songs not played, but all of them have been done for me before, so I very easily will live. There were no instrumentals, no long periods of Ghost tracks, no weak songs. The set was incredibly hard and up-tempo. Best of all, I was graced with my favourite track of all, The Fragile. My set staples (Terrible Lie; Head Like A Hole; Gave Up) all made it that night, and the brain-dead clapping spider monkeys that ruined Hurt at my last show did not attend, it seems. Trent threw down microphone stands and his keyboard, tripped and fell in his angsty vigor, and generally belted his heart and soul out, with an extremely poignant whispered "Goodbye" as he left the stage. I truly feel the lack of restriction and repetition that comes with more elaborately staged tours did wonders for the performance in Toronto. If Trent is to return, with a new project or with NIN, I hope he leans towards a loosely structured stage show in the future.
The entire show was pretty much a highlight, but I'll point out a few tracks here that really stood out for me:
1,000,000: This track is stellar, classic Broken-esque NIN. How anyone can slag The Slip with this brilliant song being on the disc, I do not know. Coming off Terrible Lie into this track made for vicious headbanging delight.
Heresy: I'd never heard this one live, and it was incredibly good, a great crowd sing-along for the chorus in my area of the theatre.
I'm Afraid Of Americans: Despite my assuming that the earlier appearance of Metal would be our only cover of the night, in hindsight, this song's appearance shouldn't have surprised me at the one Canadian date of the tour. Trent really poured himself into this Bowie track, pretty much blowing the minds of the entire audience.
The Fragile: This song has an inredible significance to my own life, and did not disappoint me. The vocal delivery was appropriately soft at the start, growing in strength towards the peak at the end. Why oh why did I not see the tour for this album? It made for an incredible transition from I Do Not Want This, the contrast sharp between it and "Don't you tell me how I feel..."
Mr. Self-Destruct: This song was too hot for words. I'd never heard this either, and it's a favourite from The Downward Spiral for me. I think this was the track where I completely screwed the muscles in my shoulders and neck rocking out. It was worth it.
Head Like A Hole: Way back in grade ten, on the bus for a school trip next to my oblivious History class crush, said crush offered to share his headphones with me after I said I had never heard Nine Inch Nails. His mix tape of personal favourites began with this song, and from moment one, I was hooked. This needed to be in my goodbye show as a full circle moment. I actually found myself rather emotional, knowing the set was closing as my fandom had begun.
Hurt: I'm kind of tired of this song overall, but in the context of a goodbye tour, with such a fragility to Trent's vocals (and no off beat clapping), this moved me.
Well done, Mr. Reznor. Well done, indeed. Please don't go away for good. Enjoy your break, renew and revive your creativity, and I'm sure I speak for every fan who's attended this tour when I say I hope we see you again soon.
For the record, opener Street Sweeper Social Club was incredible, and I highly recommend you hit ninja2009.com and download the sampler for this tour, which includes all three bands on the bill. Due to work constraints I had to bail halfway through Jane's Addiction;s set but I have to say Perry Farrell is an incredible showman and their performance was tight. Check them out too!
SETLIST
Now I'm Nothing
Terrible Lie
1,000,000
Heresy
March of the Pigs
Metal (Gary Numan)
The Becoming
I'm Afraid of Americans (Bowie)
Burn
Gave Up
I Do Not Want This
The Fragile
The Way Out Is Through
Wish
Survivalism
Mr. Self-Destruct
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole
Hurt
Relevant in so many ways... Today would have been my grandfather's 70th birthday, if he lived to see it. And just as I was at a concert as he was passing slowly on, I will be at this band's show in 15 hours... For every loss, death or heartbreak, this speaks to me now.
"I wake up
On the floor
Start it up again
Like it matters anymore
I don't know
If it does
Is this really all
That there ever was?
Put the gun
In my mouth
Close your eyes
Blow my fucking brains out
Pretty patterns
On the floor
That's enough for you
But i still need more..."
1,000,000 - Nine Inch Nails
Oh Trent. You and your angst are so pretty to so many. Your new album is a surprising throw-back to the days of Pretty Hate Machine and it pleases me with its strange danceability. And yet, something has gone wrong with our love affair, Trent. I walked away from your show Tuesday night feeling unsatisfied, like a lover brought nearly to climax after hours of foreplay, only for the man to shoot off, roll over and sleep, leaving me fumbling for a vibrator.
This isn't to say that Trent has lost his live touch in terms of performance; despite being under the weather, the man whispered, growled and screamed his way through a long set of songs with gusto, complete with an incredible visual display of lights and projected images true to the NIN tradition. What was lacking in this show was proper setlist placement, resulting in a show that packed on the ferocity towards the end of the main set, only to chill to near-lounge mellowness for the entire encore, including the audience-ruined classic Hurt (can you people NOT clap in rhythm, if you feel the need to clap? It's Hurt, not Heresy. Oi.). I've delayed this review for several days, mainly because I walked out with such a nasty taste in my mouth from the lacklustre finale that I began to wonder whether I was "getting over" Nine Inch Nails, music in general, or perhaps just suffering from a basic concept in Psychology known as the Recency Effect (i.e., we remember well what we heard/saw most recently). After several days (and an enthusiastic listening of Somewhat Damaged last night), I've concluded that the encore, being the last thing I heard, overshadowed the rest of the show, thus doing the precise opposite of what an encore is meant to do: send you onto the streets happy and wishing for more, full of energy (and usually the band's latest kicking single).
I have to say that opening band Deerhunter failed completely. Very few people in the pit were impressed, and that went double for the stands. I was completely unimpressed with their failure to effectively use multiple lead guitars, their contrived sound that felt like a bastard child of Nirvana on Ritalin... Ugh. No words. Completely cliched and awful. Did Trent pick them? How could he go from openers like A Perfect Circle and The Dresden Dolls to that? But enough of them; on to the main event...
I should have sense a strange disturbance in the force when Discipline, the lead single from Trent's latest offering The Slip emerged early in the set in a rapid-fire assault of tracks from that disc, including the delicious track 1,000,000 which feels in a way as a "fuck off" to fans wanting more 'emo' Trent since his addiction recovery ("That's enough for you..."). Trent and company rocked the show nicely at first, and then the pattern of the night became more apparent: he was going to conduct mini-concerts for each release lacking a proper tour thus far in Canada. An extended instrumental sequence featuring multiple tracks from Ghosts went on just a little too long, to the point where I nearly dozed off despite the beautiful staging and my general like of the double-disc set (perhaps it was second-hand pot from the people in front of me blazing up?).
Then began a primarily 'old' set of classics, heavily laden with material prior to The Fragile, which leads me to my next complaint, and one that holds from their last outings here for With Teeth: what the hell is up with the complete ignoring of The Fragile, which is one of my favourite NIN discs? Seriously, between two shows, I've heard three songs, one instrumental, and none of them major singles. Where are Starfuckers Inc, We're In This Together, The Fragile, The Day The World Went Away or Somewhat Damaged? Late in the set, while talking to the crowd, Trent noted this was the beginning of the tour and that the band had spent "four months locked ina dark room, trying to figure out what the fans wanted to hear". Appearently Trent couldn't seet the cardboard casing of The Fragile in his little mortuary of practice space. I know the album sold well; where are the tunes, goddamn it?
Sliding in towards and through the encore, we were primarily showered with tracks from Year Zero, which was not toured in Canada, and again felt like an overkill mini-set. What's worse, after Hurt, Trent went out on mellow track In This Twilight instead of something with oomph like Capital G or, hey, for a mellow-ish outro, how about the single My Violent Heart? Of four encore tracks, 3 were down notes. That's NOT how to wrap a show. If you swapped the last four tracks of the main set with the encore, I would have had a much more favourable impression of the show. I left half-asleep and annoyed instead of pumped and enthused.
Please don't get me wrong; I love mellow tracks as well. But you really need to keep a set mixed, and usually Trent is solid for it. The albums weren't mixed, the set went through distinct up and down periods, and it just felt disjointed in a very bad way. Perhaps with feeling ill, Trent kept the ending easy, avoiding vocal acrobatics? It's the only excuse I can think of. Then again, the main set closed HARD. And why were the albums not blended together? Why separate the albums in the set?
Overall, the show, especially the main set, was a solid outing. But having come from my last show, where I had no idea what track would be next, where the encore rocked, this paled dramatically in comparison. Amazing what setlist order can do... I've never experienced disliking a show almost strictly on set order before.
SETLIST: NINE INCH NAILS @ ACC, TORONTO 8/5/08
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Head Down
The Frail
The Wretched
Closer
Gave Up
The Warning [play it]
Vessel
Ghosts 5
Ghosts 6
Ghosts 19
Ghosts Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
The Big Come Down
Ghosts 31
Only [play it]
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole
ENCORE:
Echoplex
God Given
The Good Soldier
Hurt
In This Twilight
