When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. ~Hunter S. Thompson
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| Nine Inch Nails at Target Center |
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| Written by Administrator | |||
| Friday, 05 December 2008 13:57 | |||
 This concert had been scheduled for August 2nd (a Saturday night) and was postponed to a Tuesday. Never a good thing. I usually come home and crank out on the keyboard all my thoughts on the whole event. Then, wait a day, touch it up a bit and post it. But, usually I am enthused. I love live music, almost any live music. And, coming home from a show, I am usually pumped up and excited about the experience. But then there are the exceptions.
There are the shows I really don't like. And for those shows, it is work to put these words together. I have a hard time even wanting to think about it. Here it is, over a week past the event and I am still agonizing about what to write. Aimee suggested I just post some pictures and forget about it. But, I can't do that either.  No doubt the Nine Inch Nails show was visually interesting. With an extremely complex stage setup and some really interesting technology, the stage show made the near crossover into theater. The main visual effect employed semi transparent screens of what I think were L.E.D.s allowing almost a TV like image floating in front of the musicians. By changing the amount of light falling directly on the players, they would be either highly visible, silhouetted or totally hidden. Very interesting effects. At one point it looked like the musicians were floating in the middle of a waterfall.We attended the concert with our friend Isreal who has attended more shows than I can ever hope to attend. Shortly after we arrived on the main floor Isreal decided that really, his mustache was a persona unto itself and he began to speak of it in the third person. "The Stash wants to move closer"  I came to this concert last night because I had never been to a Nine Inch Nails concert. I came to hear Reznor's new music, but I really expected to hear all of my most favorites. The general nostalgia mix. I was particularly hopeful for this concert because of the return of Robin Fink at lead guitar. Fink had played with the band in it's early years. However, instead primarily it was all the new stuff. And, I am not a fan of the direction Reznor's music is going. It has lost it's punch as it heads toward sounding like elevator music. What The Stash calls "artsy, obscure instrumentals". As far as oldies go there was Head like a Hole, Closer, Hurt, Gave Up, Down In It, Wish and Terrible Lie. Head like a hole.
Black as your soul. I'd rather die than give you control. Bow down before the one you serve. Youre going to get what you deserve. But, where was All the Love in the World, Every Day is Exactly the Same (which was the title theme song to a motion picture this year), where was The Frail, and all the other favorites? I feel like Reznor has moved too fast for his fan base. As The Stash says, "I was hoping to be pummeled with that old NIN catalog of intense rockers."  What it amounts to is, I think his new music, even if it does catch on, is not the type of music to fill arenas. And, Reznor, after years of battles with his record company, even going as far as to post on his web site: "The climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more." has embarked on a new business model where he has given away his last two albums online. Presumably to make his money by filling arenas.There is at concerts what I call the lighter-square ratio. When the fans are calling for a song, or a song comes up that they particularly like, they like to hold up a light. At concerts where the crowd is very young, they all have cell phones. They hold the phones in the air and so the crowd is filled with waving blue squares. But an old school concert, the crowd holds up a lighter. But, of course the crowd is never 100% one or the other. This ratio of how many lighters to how many squares tells you the makeup of the crowd. So, last night the lighter ratio was high. To me, that says your die hard fans are there. They have been the ones buying your music for years. They want to hear you play all the favorites they have bought. They didn't get it at the Nine Inch Nails show and I wonder if they will turn out for the next one. I gave the show a 3 out of 5. Because, afterall, it was Trent Reznor. And, because I was close to the stage on the main floor of the Nine Inch Nails, a band I have wanted to see for years. The Stash gave it a 4 out of 5. because he felt like everyone in the band played their hearts out. OK, I am done. Just post it already.... There might be typos, frankly I don't even want to read it again.
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| Last Updated on Monday, 09 November 2009 00:06 |
