i dreamed i was getting married, it was all taking place at my grandmas house in warren, mi. i was sitting there going through all the cards and checks that were sent in, alot of them being from a Harris family, so I assumed whoever it was i was marrying was a Harris. the family was very generous where as my family and friends weren’t, seeing a couple of checks for amounts like 6.47. i was wandering around the house, super anxiety filled because i didn’t want to be getting married. my aunt was there, but she looked like she did back in 1984. looking out the front window i saw my bridesmaids arriving with my dress all zipped up in a plastic garment bag. they were already dressed and it was horrible. they were wearing black capri pants, and hideous green polo shirts with white cardigans. the maid of honor wore the same but a bright pink shirt. i went out to the garage where they were taking the dress, which was also hideous with lots of lace and other things i’d never wear. my mom was there and i started asking her why i didn’t do any of the planning for my own wedding. i didn’t pick out the outfits or the dress or anything and i didn’t even know who i was marrying. apparently i was marrying my ex uncle (carol’s ex husband). i sat down dreading the whole thing, among my hideously dressed bridesmaids who i didn’t even know – they were complete strangers. ppl said i should be happy i didn’t have to do the planning.
nine inch nails, mohegan sun
Thursday brought driving out to Connecticut and Mohegan Sun Casino for the nin show. The venue was all seats, so we didn’t need to be there early for anything. Left Buffalo around 9:30, got in almost exactly 7 hours later and found the hotel. Chilled a bit and headed to the casino around 6:30. We had attempted to miss deerhunter, but got there too early and had to suffer again. The most entertaining part of that was a clearly drunken guy in the lower bowl dancing and dancing away to them. It was more interesting than watching the band. Anyway…adr and I were row M which ended up being 11 from the stage, dead center. Adr2 and Bliss were further back but center.
Then this giant guy sat down directly in front of me, 2 rows ahead. I dubbed him Hagrid and even tho we were still sitting I knew once nin came on I wouldn’t be able to see anything. And I was right. 999999 started, everyone stood up, and Hagrid was directly blocking my view of center stage – aka trent. To make it even better, the guy and girl right in front of us traded spots so the girl could see, so then i had 2 giants in front of me. Completely seriously, for the first 5 songs I didn’t even see a smidgen of trent. So I resorted to watching Robin, oh the horror 🙂 As the show went on, gaps of space between giant heads opened and I was able to see, plus Hagrid left a few times and sat down, so it ended up being ok.
The show itself…started the same, but the frail was followed by the wretched as it should be! frail into closer was just weird. that meant they left out head down, fine by me. In front of the screen, we got the great destroyer instead of vessel – and it didn’t kill me! the ultra lame vocal flourish wasn’t that bad live, and as I like the rest of the song before and after those 3 seconds, it was cool to see. the light show during the “break down” 2nd half of the song was awesome…I had seen some clips on youtube from the european festivals last year, but way better in person. They also switched out ghosts 6 for ghosts 5. The rest of the set was the same. Somehow, and it’s always hard to articulate why, but this show was better than Toronto. Toronto felt mellow, and despite Mohegan all being seats, it didn’t feel the same. There was no crowd action, hardly anyone even moving, but still didn’t feel mellow. Robin was dead on all night, especially the wretched. Dear god, I feel bad for people who’ve only seen that song with Aaron playing. It is so different with Robin and sounds amazing. His guitar on Ghosts 31, killer again. I need to listen to that track on the album to compare. I also need to see Robin play reptile. I’ve seen it on the dvd, and always considered that the best live version of reptile, but need to hear it in person. Robin also got mad at someone off stage during head like a hole, kept giving whoever it was the finger, and he stalked off the stage at the end of the song. Amusing. Oh…the surveillance cameras during survivalism…there are venue cameras, but the mens room view is not live…it was the same guys doing the same thing as toronto, which is probably a good thing haha.
The sorta bad part…you (or at least we) could clearly tell Trent’s voice was having issues. Even during a normal show, by the time he gets to the hand that feeds, he’ll drop the high notes down. He started dropping high notes very very early in the set, even during Wish which doesn’t even really have high notes. Then he talked to the crowd during the encore, told us he’d be at Denny’s down the street later, and clearly his voice was almost gone. I had a bad bad feeling that the Worcester show would get canceled but didn’t say it to anyone. All I said after the show was that Trent better not talk to anyone til 8pm friday. Well…got up Friday morning and drove to Worcester, parked, stopped at CVS then walked to the venue only to find it strangely fan-less. Then we saw the sign on the door – show canceled, postponed until November 9th. Nothing else to do but drive home, and here we are.
Setlist from someone on ETS who grabbed it after the show, so we know it’s right.
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
The Frail
The Wretched
Closer
Gave Up
The Warning
The Great Destroyer
Ghosts 1
Ghosts 5
Ghosts 19
Ghosts Piggy (ah this explains the different version)
The Greater Good
(Pinion not on the set list but played)
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
Ghosts 31
Only
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole
ENCORE
Echoplex
God Given
The Good Soldier
Hurt
In This Twilight
good to know
It’s apparently illegal to kick someone out of your car on the mass pike
quick recap
the mohegan show sounded way better than toronto. Robin was on. Trent’s voice is hurting but was still good. 2 diff songs played
nine inch nails toronto
“and it’s nights like tonight and crowds like this that make it fun for us to play.” Something like that, anyway.
sorta funny, he says a very similar thing at rochester spring 05 toronto summer 06 “it’s nights like tonight and it’s crowds like you guys that make this a fucking pleasure”, and no, he doesn’t always say stuff like this at every show. there have been plenty of shows where he hasn’t addressed the crowd at all…it seems he always does mention something like this in toronto though.
i feel like my thoughts on the show are all over the place. i’m finding it really really hard to describe properly. it’s really not the typical nin show that i got used to the last 3 years. but it’s still alot of the same songs, so i’m not really sure how the feeling of it changed so much. i’m not sure a radio fan would enjoy it – tho he plays the “greatest hits” still – as they may not have any experience with ghosts, or even the slip and would be sorta confused at why there’s suddenly an upright bass and a xylophone on stage.
and now i’m going to take a moment to sound like maynard james keenan at at least one apc/tool show i was at. he doesn’t allow cameras in venues anymore, sings either at the drum kit, or with apc, with his back to the crowd. he doesn’t want people taking pictures, and as he put it “put the cameras down and just experience the show”….SO so many people around us had their cameras out, above their heads, for almost all the show. look, you have a crap digital point and shoot, from 50 feet away with heads and arms in the way, using a flash, your photos are going to look terrible as it was clear from the LCD screen…just put it down and enjoy the show. it got really really irritating to me after awhile to have to look around people’s cameras constantly (i’m not exaggerating) in order to see. give it up.
i think i’m done…hahah maybe…god time for bed, big time
tour plans
planning for this week…we’re staying at the super 8 in groton ct, 15 miles from mohegan sun on thurs night. i used hotwire, which was very stressful. had no idea what we’d be getting before hand, but it’s cheap. looking up reviews now that i know what we’ve gotten, some say it was absolute crap and had roaches, others say it was great. may bring my own towel tho….
i desperately need to get out early tonight as eric is coming over very very early tomorrow for going to toronto. the weather has potential to be crap and storms all day too which sucks…hopefully we can sit inside at air canada center like during the november 05 show.
and that reminds me, carolyn maybe you can help. british friends are visiting in a few weeks and want to go to toronto for the day. what do tourists do in toronto besides CN tower? cuz after that i don’t know where to take them hahahah. 2 adults and 2 children, and me. i’ve never really been a toronto tourist… ideas welcome.
tour sadness
i just have to say i’m not at all excited for the tour next week.
the nin.com photoblog has ruined the setlist for me. and now that i know what is being played, i should be excited because some are songs high on my list, but i’m still not.
if i didn’t have nin.com presale tickets, which i have to pick up in person, i’d probably start selling them off. i feel this will be the last time i do a tour like this.
vegas photos
photos from vegas here:
hoover dam
and
red rock canyon
news on aud demo on 10pm news tonight…nothing at all new. demo scheduled for october, and dear tim tielman on tv saying that the facade should be saved, like they saved the facade of the rock pile (or something)…
Vegas!
back from vegas.
headed out to visit adr in vegas on tuesday. arrived in the afternoon, and wow. hot. for those who don’t know, flying into vegas in the summer sucks. lots of turbulence from the desert heat, and i was in 2nd last row of the plane. not fun. good thing i hadn’t eaten since work the night before. and as you come into town and look below, it’s nothing…nothing…desert…more desert….nothing…desert…hoover dam…nothing…bam vegas. and looking at all that desert wasteland you have to think, who in their right mind ages ago was traveling the continent and thought, “hey this is a nice place, let’s settle here.” it’s almost uninhabitable hahah. i still think vegas is the most bizarre place on earth.
anyway. first stop, eating at a SONIC! omg! FINALLY. after being tortured with all those sonic commercials and the closest location being 3+ hours away, score! we NEED a sonic, it is SO good, i’d eat there all the time. just the best. tues night we went downtown and played pai gow at binions for 3 hours or so, only losing $50 haha. walked around and got some dinner at the golden gate diner.
wednesday we were supposed to take the nevada test site tour. as you may have read 2 months ago i joyously posted we were taking the tour…2 months ago i said that…got it? 2 months ago we were confirmed for the tour, but the paperwork we were supposed to get the week before never came. so we called on tuesday to find out, and low and behold we’re not on the attendance list for the tour. adr talked to the lady to try to find out what happened, the lady looked and oh yeah, she has my email with our information and confirmation but somehow we’re not on the list, and she just can’t go and bump someone else off the tour for us. she said we could go at departure time anyway, to see if people don’t show up, but 6 people would not have to show up to allow us to go. we had at first said yes, we’d go and see but later that day we decided not to even try. 6 ppl was alot to not show up, and it would suck to get up that early and not go. we decided to go to hoover dam on wednesday instead. checking my email at 9:30 wed morning, the lady emailed me saying we could go on the tour – and not even on standby. well gee thanks. she KNEW i was on vacation, why would she think i’d be checking my email in time. so we missed it. stupid government incompetency. how hard is it to prepare an accurate list of tour attendees…
so hoover dam. it’s only like 30 miles away, and i didn’t realize it was that close. i don’t think i really knew where it was haha. drove over the dam and parked on the arizona side, so now i can say i’ve been in arizona (barely ha). walked across the dam back to the nevada side and the visitors center and tours. we took the “power plant tour” which takes you down into the dam/rock above one of the intake tunnels (i think that’s what it was), and then into the nevada generator room. it’s not a super detailed tour, as after 9-11 they’ve closed down most of the place to public tours. there was another more in depth tour that takes you to 2 other parts of the dam, required hard hats (which were the most flimsy plastic pieces of crap that would protect you from NOTHING), but we didn’t take that. there was a museum portion and over look to see the front of the dam (or is it the back…? haha). i didn’t realize how stylized and art deco the dam was. now a days you’d just get some cement, no decoration or anything. and building it was crazy. it was 110 out that day and the guide pointed out that the workers worked 24hr/day, 7days/week, in 3 shifts for $4 a day…2 days off a year…in that kind of heat. unions would never allow that now…maybe that’s why the dam was finished 2 years ahead of schedule, and everything the government does now is delayed for ages.
back into town that night…i think we just stayed in and watched harry potters. i’m not a big partier to begin with, but the heat just exhausted me so staying in was no problem.
thursday we went out to red rock canyon, outside of town. it has a 13 mile scenic drive with stopping points and trails (if you’re nuts enough to go hiking in 110 degrees ha). the scenery is just so foreign to me, being from the north east. the government totally could have faked a moon landing out there. it was very cool tho. we unfortunately did not see any burros though 🙁
thurs night was Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian, 2nd row! awesome to be that close, and see the details in the set (especially during masquerade). the show was a bit different from the traditional broadway version…they cut some parts – 2 i can think of, the crew member scaring the ballet girls with stories of Phantom hanging people in the 1st act, and rehearsals of Don Juan Triumphant and more notes in the 2nd act. There was no intermission, so the chandelier did not fall midway, it fell after Point of No Return, and it fell straight down into the audience (and back up) and everyone started screaming hahahah. those were the only differences i noticed, but it was still really good. i don’t know how anyone can not like phantom haha. walked around a bit after then headed home. more harry potter i think lol.
friday we attempted to see the Bodies exhibit at Tropicana, only it had closed the weekend before and didn’t open at Luxor until next week. Ah well, so we walked over to Excalibur and had lunch at Dick’s Last Resort. Trammed it over to Mandalay Bay and through Luxor back, some guy was being put on a stretcher at Luxor. They had all the security and gaming officials standing around, so it looked suspicious haha. stopped at the world’s largest gift shop before going back to the apartment to cool down. more harry potter. hahah.
flight left vegas at 11, and oh…incase you’re looking for something in a vending machine, other than an ipod or psp, you can also buy pro-activ solution kits from a vending machine at the airport. because yes, when i’m walking through an airport i’m in desperate need for acne products. wth! got home at 11am, my phone battery died and my parents were waiting for a call in the cell phone lot…but i don’t know anyones phone numbers without the phone. oops. so called around to neighbors to call my parents for me, and eventually found them. got lunch and then home to sleep the rest of the day. called into work, apparently 1 of 14 hahah oops. starving now and i have no food, gotta go to the store.
i had to be at the terminal at 7 am to let in the caterers for todays wedding, so i stopped at my old mcdonalds drive thru on my way. and wow, they now have an automatic drink dispenser in drive thru. it must be hooked up to the register system, and when a drink is ordered it snaps into action. the different size cups spun around, and a mechanical arm grabbed on and put it on a conveyor that took it under a dispenser. from the looks of it, the first dispenser puts the pop syrup in the cup, it’s moved to the next dispenser which adds the soda water…which seems kind of strange, why they can’t just use the old pop system but there was no other way to explain it. then it moves over and sits there ready for the person to slap a lid on it and give it to the customer. progress!! but my food was still terrible, hashbrowns mushy and undercooked, the sausage biscuits hard as rocks (and they’d only been serving breakfast for an hour or so), i guess some things never change. ha
i tried to sleep all day, seeing as how i was up for 21 hours before getting to bed, but it didn’t happen. so now i’m tired, neck and head hurts, and starving. oh and it’s 85 degrees in my house. can’t wait for central AC.