The Beginning of the End

It was hot.

We were all ready to pass out, truly.

It was sweaty.

We were all sweaty but Trent was the sweatiest of us all.

It was plagued by a more than a few completely aggressive, idiotic sorry excuses for humans.

But we all had to be a little bit on the side of aggressive last night to combat what we were thrown into.

Despite the dehydration, disgust, and detestable behaviour on behalf of some, I made it finally...

And saw one of the best shows, from one of my favourite bands on one of their final tour dates in their 20 year long career.

The Nine Inch Nails "Wave Goodbye" Tour 8/25/2009 @ Terminal 5, NYC Set List:


Home
Terrible Lie
The Beginning Of The End
Discipline
March Of The Pigs
The Line Begins To Blur
I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie Cover)
Ruiner
The Big Come Down
Burn
Gave Up
La Mer
The Fragile
Non-Entity
Eraser
The Way Out Is Through
1,000,000
Letting You
Survivalism
Reptile (with Peter Murphy)
Kick in the Eye (Bauhaus) with Peter Murphy
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole

encore

The Frail
The Wretched
The Day The World Went Away
Dead Souls (Joy Division cover) with Peter Murphy
Wish
Hurt

The Lowlamps:

1. Reznorians. There was a time in my life when I would have been considered a Reznorian. Perhaps not as assholish as they can be, but I was pretty much of the House of Reznor. You could not speak ill of Trent to me. Of course, I still think you cannot speak ill of everything Pre and Including The Fragile but that's just due to the fact that those albums are all ace.

However, being an ex-member of the cult that is the HoR, I have been able to step back these past few years to understand that members of that cult are as most cult members are - Insane.

They're rude. They're beyond rude. They are downright nasty. And they insist that they follow no etiquette at a concert and will literally push you to the ground to clear a path for themselves and their stupid, fake, poser girlfriends. Yeah. That one guy and that one girl? I am still really angry at their stupidity and would still want to punch them in the faces if I could. Oh laws. They're so good sometimes at keeping people out of trouble yet still the idiots break them and break moral codes by shoving people unfairly to cater to their own selfish needs.

2. The heat. Terminal 5...so many people had to flee the pit from exhaustion due to heat issues that I was half expecting someone to fall on me or worse. Did the A/C have to be as low as it was? Psh.

3. The sweat. Thanks again Terminal 5. It was so hot, and crazy that we were all sweating. EVERYONE. Some more than others. And those others decided they wanted to push on me and touch me with their pool drenching nastiness. I feel skeeved just thinking about that one...larger than I am girl, who just... pressed. ::shudder:: excuse me while I go take a third shower to rid the stink of the 10 sweat ones endured last night.

4. I guess that makes Terminal 5 ass. Not to mention it is in the middle of nowhere - well, near the highway so I could get an almost run over. Psh. 11th Avenue? Where's the damned subway station? Ugh, I'll try to not go there again. What a nightmare.

5. Peter Murphy effed up the lyrics to "Reptile". A favourite song of mine which, number 1 not sung by Trent at the show and then number 2, to be messed up by crazy ol' Peter Murphy. Nice one there, P.M. Just effin' nice.

6. The girl who could not shut the eff up and knew she talked too much. She was a Reznorian, one level of Reznorian called "effin' annoying". Her voice was grating, her conversations were grating and she insisted singing when she could not at all "sing", and loudly, no doubt. Again, if I could smack, I would.

7. Trent kept giving us side/evil eye. I don't know why...

8. My ignorance. Of all the years NIN's been touring, how did I NOT know that Robin Finck was so hot?! Granted I was distracted by my love of Trent but geez. All I had to do was look to the left to find greatness! Maybe I looked during the years he was not touring with them... and well, since I never went to a show before, I guess I really did not look anywhere, honestly. All those wasted years...

9. The Horrors. I am really sorry to put them here but I have to. While I do not hate the new album, I do hate that they have completely ignored the fact that they created a first album that was really good, and chose to play only tracks from their new album which layered in sound on the album, did not justly come out as such on terrible equipment. Beetchie was very upset by the awful sound and I do not blame her. I was so disappointed by them, it hurt me.

The Horrors 8/25/2009 @ Terminal 5, NYC Set List:

Mirror's Image
Three Decades
I Can't Control Myself
New Ice Age
Scarlet Fields
Who Can Say
Sea Within a Sea

The Highlights:

1. Everything else! Ha. To be more specific - NIN. The band. Musicians at their finest that lot Trent got together. Everyone was on point. The drumming was incredibly tight. He was belting out beats perfectly. The sound. The SOUND! The sound was i-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e. I was reminded why I love Nine Inch Nails last night. Trent can be quite brill. and live, even more so. There's no denying that there's no need for elaborate stage props or lights because the music itself is all you need for the show to be the best one would ever see and hear.

2. Robin Finck. Again, what's with my stupidity? His hair was awesome. His facial expressions during singing were hilarious and he was just that kind of rocker hardcore hotness (and cute at the same time?) that only an acrobat can marry. Huh? An acrobat? Curses.

3. Pain. I was unsure of where to put this. Pain's not a good thing ever, really. But Pit Pain gives me creds! I managed to last a pit for a good while (thanks to some help by Beetchie, of course who was the best Beetchie there is and made sure I was okay). Not only did I manage to hold it down in a pit; I managed to hold it down in a NIN pit. Oh yeah. I shoved. I elbowed idiots and I got pushed out eventually but it was fun (who knew I would actually say that after being squished for most of the first song) while it lasted.

4. Did I mention how astonishing NIN are live? I did, right? Well it needs to be on here again due to the unnatural ferociousness and force that we were hit with. I cannot express properly just how amazing it all was.

5. Beetchie in a pit. Cute as usual how she just bounces in and tears it up then comes back. Ha, it cracks me up every time.

6. A and J! I have not seen A and J in a long time and I miss them. I'm so happy they got to come and were excited too.

7. Trent's antics. I forgot he likes to leave his keyboard, disappears for a few, then takes a flying leap over to it again to play. He comes out of no where and it is hilarious.

8. Trent's sweat was disgusting. I have never seen a t-shirt look so black before. It was shiny, it was so drenched! I did not get footage but he was dripping from the arms - huge drops of sweat. Why is this a highlight? Well, it was funny in that nasty kind of way.

9. The Horrors at least played "Scarlet Fields", a song I really wanted to hear.

10. The set list was good. Although it was riddled with things I do not usually listen to, due to the fact that I have not listened in a while, this really worked out for me. It's certainly not the greatest set list I've seen this tour (stupid Webster Hall getting the entire damned TDS is just legendary), but with every song performed so well, who the eff cares?! Well... I care that a lot of songs I wanted to hear were not on here but this was not so bad. Maybe I'm just still coming off a music high and will re-think this at a later date.

Pics (probably my most horrible shots to date):

All about The Horrors:





There was a lot of 'reaching out' by Faris. What was he grasping? I have no idea. Only he knows, really.
Not pictured - his very British nose that had Beetchie questioning a natural Brit. occurence.

All About Peter Murphy of Bauhaus:





All About Trent:







All About Robin! Love...him!:





All About NIN (or at least Trent and Robin. I was in a bad position to get any shots of their FANTASTIC drummer, Ilan Rubin (lame!) and just one of their bassist, Justin Meldal-Johnsen:










All About Beetchie in the Pit!



Well, kind of. I lost her and got a pic of random people.

Memorable Performances of the Evening: "Burn", "Ruiner" and "The Big Come Down". It was kind of hard to choose one or three since it was all was so fantastic but "Burn" never sounded so good before (especially since I've been butchering it in Rock Band 2 and "The Big Come Down"? One of my favourite songs by them. I did not expect it. Of course, there's always a special place in my heart for "Ruiner".

Memorable Moments of the Evening:

"Come on, pigs!" - Trent Reznor.

What? It was almost as if H1 was there egging him on to say that to me ahead of "March of the Pigs". I'm not a pig! Also, it sure sounded like "mosh" instead of "march". H1, what did you do?!

Memorable Conversations of the Evening and on the show:

1. After the show, some guy: I just lost 15 pounds being in here.

2. On leaving the venue, Or 2: What the...why is there a mosh pit to get out of this place too? I did not know there were two pits...

3. H1 to Or 2 the next day: So, did seeing Trent re-kindle any love you have for him?
Or 2: Oh no. It's all about Robin now. Eff Trent.

Finally, a little personal history of mine relating to Trent and NIN:

The Beginning

NIN and their album The Downward Spiral changed everything for me.

Musically, it was sheer brilliance. The sounds, the layers, and what later I discovered was the "commercialization of Industrial" amazed my young impressionable self. Lyrically, I had never heard anything so dark and raw before. And cursing? Yeah, there was a lot of that too and it was shocking for one such as myself, having grown up a fairly sheltered life.

I remember taking a most influential album poll years later on some website - the bands that defined your generation and had the most impact on you, and many of my favourite bands were on there - Radiohead's "OK Computer", and Stone Temple Pilots' "Purple" to name a couple.

The choice to me was clear. Truthfully, I selected the one that mattered most to me as my defining moment and it was, TDS even though by that time I had almost given up on Trent Reznor and NIN.

Ironically, With Teeth was the beginning of the end for me. Trent became a little too pompous, a little too elitist for reasons that were unclear to me because I for the most part, disliked most of his work after The Fragile.

I admit it.

I fell off NIN.

No longer would someone if asked for whatever reason, "What's Or 2's favourite band?" could they say NIN without hesitation.

Years went by and I did not even listen to them.

I know I have berated TR lots on this blog too.

I have always heard/read the best reviews about their concerts though. I tried going to MSG once to see them but that did not work out. Then they started playing NJ and hell if I'd go to NJ more than completely necessary.

With the announcement of final tour dates for my once favourite band, I had to go see them and as documented, lost many opportunities in recent history to do so.

I had reservations. I knew the concert going crowd would be hellish and that alone was enough to make me steer clear.

But I had to do this.

I had a bit of a revelation on the D train this morning at 1:15 AM.

Literally, I stopped mid-conversation as if it finally sunk in, looked up and said it to Beetchie and more to myself.

"I cannot believe it. Oh my God. I just saw Nine Inch Nails. I... Just saw NINE INCH NAILS!!!!!!"

It took me 15 years to be able to make that declaration.

Their music 'soundtracked' a lot of my life earlier on and I associate them with comfort through some bad memories, a reminder of happier times (Little Brian, I love you always and I felt somber during "Dead Souls". You were our little 'Brandon Lee' in The Crow) and some truly great ones.

Song after song, the words fell out of my mouth with ease after not listening in years and having been so sure that I had forgotten it all.

I would be telling an untruth if I said I do not feel a little bit of sadness right now that this is the end.

Currently listening to: "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails. I cannot believe this song still manages to make me cry after so many years. Eff you, NIN!