This is WAY after the fact, but what the hell. I haven't yet worked through my own feelings towards this event. I'm a relatively recent Nine Inch Nails fan: I first discovered them last year, so the fact that they are going to no longer be touring isn't as loaded an issue for me as it has been for others, but there was something like desperation in the brutal, every-man-for-himself vibe I was getting from the crowd as we all jostled for position. Maybe it was partly my fault for showing up without anyone I knew. Normally sallying forth solo into the unknown is how I like it, but this place was going to get very intense very fast. My pre-show jitters were more intense then they normally are.
On the plus side, someone at the Palladium must have known I collect buttons. The commemorative NiN button they were handing out now decorates the new black trilby I got at Outside Lands to replace my much-loved, faithful red DREAMER hat that got lost in my move.
The opening act was called Queen Kwong, a five piece I had never heard of before; an eclectic line up of bass player rock-god-type who was dressed all in black and slinging his bass from his knees, a woman with lots of curly hair and a silver violin, a cellist and drummer I could not see from where I was standing, and a slim, dark-haired front-woman who wielded the only guitar. Her small orange instrument provided the group's crunch, while the strings wove a haunted, paranoid tapestry, creating a very interesting kind of multi-layered effect. The front-woman also has an effortless way with a crowd, engaging in some banter with front-row people who were inaudible but apparently complementing her on her bass player, since her response was an enthusiastic "I KNOW, that's why I have him in the band!" Her bubbly attitude was kind of at odds with her malevolent vocal style: she snarls, yelps, growls, drips disdain and reminds me strongly of Prince of Darkness Trent Reznor's breathy, emotional range.
Now, I know a lot of very smart people who swear by MEW, the electronic-goth-mind-bendy group from Denmark. They even had their own cheering section in the front to wave little Danish flags when they took the stage. All the same, I just didn't like them. They had a big multi-media display behind them that kept showing surreal animation clips that they looped over and over, which was atmospheric but distracting (to an animation nerd like me anyway) and their music, at least to my over-anxious, uneducated ears, washed around my head like an otherworldy tide without giving me anything to really hang on to. And the bass was turned up so high that the overhanging speaker cabinet rattled my bones like an LRAD. It's not the greatest first impression I've ever gotten from a band.
Then came Nine Inch Nails. All hail, the moment of reckoning.
What is it with the bands I see and the front-men falling sick? Incubus's guy was sick. Poor Eddie Vedder was sick. Now Trent was sick, and while it didn't stop him from grabbing the mic with both hands and striking that runner's pose we all know, screaming his lungs out, diving into the audience during "Piggy," or much else of anything, really. He apologized around 2/3 through the show for his "shitty" voice, but since "shitty" in his case meant "hoarser on the low-ranges then it usually is" no one minded that much. And the rest of the band, of course, was phenomenal. Robin Fink is less of a guitarist and more of a guitar-plucking space-alien with liquid joints and the voice of a demon. Justin Mendal-Johnson looks like a normal guy who's bass transforms him into Your Worst Nightmare: stomping around and screaming his backing vocals. Drummer Ilan Rubin is a tornado with arms and hair. This line up rocks.
Oh, there was a guy Trent introduced to the crowd as "having a huge influence on what Nine Inch Nails turned into." His name was Gary Numan, he was a pickled little goth guy with huge black hair who walked up to the microphone and took over the band effortlessly. Trent, probably grateful for the break, retreated to his keyboards and for the next three songs, it was this Numan guy's reedy croon that ruled the day. This Numan is impressive, whoever he is.
They played "The Downward Spiral" beginning to end, too. Forgot to mention that part.
It was hot as hell in the pit. I was still badly sunburned from Outside Lands, and didn't last longer then about three songs. And then I found out they weren't letting people off the floor, so there was no way to get to the water-bottles. I got so thirsty I grabbed an abandoned, half-full bottle off the floor and drank THAT. The fact that it doesn't seem to have made me sick amazes me.
Amazing show, and eventful enough to clear Shoreline's "NiN/JA" disappointment from my mind. Not that NiN was bad, but JA was so much BETTER....
It's sad that NiN is going away for a while, but as Yahtzee has said (in a completely different context) if the original creator really wants to put his pet project down humanely, it's usually in everyone's best interests to let him.
Until we meet again, then. Now that Year Zero TV show.... THAT is something to get excited about.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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