Tag Archives: Nine Inch Nails

tonight was the nin show at the Q in cleveland. i won’t go into how i hate cleveland but it still stands. pat and i followed adr2 and bliss to the hotel, checked in and went off to the venue. right after we got there, sarah aka enten tora showed up. got let into the venue at quarter to 6 and went for our usual spot, right of center in front of robin, 1 back from rail. someone adr2 knew, but bliss and i couldn’t remember was in front of us as well as one of the girls who was at the birthday dinner at hard rock in berlin was directly in front of me. she didn’t acknowledge me or show any hint that she knew who i was, so neither did i (i didn’t particularly like her to begin with) hah. she was a good cushion during the show 🙂 the crowd wasn’t too bad, the usual lots of pushing, arms getting stuck places and bruised. i somehow got cut on my leg, not badly but oddly. it was so so hot though, everyone was drenched in sweat and disgusting. the girls in front of us were short so no problem getting air, but that air wasn’t exactly fresh haha. got drenched by a few of robin’s water bottles but it didn’t help. still gross and hot. the last time we were that gross was prob toronto club shows when the air was condensing on the ceiling and dripping back down on us.

the opener was someone called Nicholas Megalis, a local guy because none of the 4 openers this leg could apparently play this show. the first thought we all had was “male fronted dresden dolls”…he played piano, was sorta spazzy, and had a drummer. he wasn’t bad. certainly better and more entertaining than deerhunter.

the show was great as usual. the frail into closer again, plus head down. i’m not sure which ghost song we got after the first one, i didn’t recognize it at all. for some reason they didn’t play the hand that feeds. but, during the encore we got reptile instead of the good soldier. gah!! reptile!! with robin!! killer. still my fav nin song, i was so happy to hear him play it. it didn’t disappoint. trent talked alot during the encore, introducing the band, talking about getting his start in cleveland, his family in attendance so he tried not to say the f-word but fucked it up, thanked them for conceiving him and making him who he turned out to be. ali acknowledged the audience TWICE…when trent introduced him and when leaving after in this twilight. trent’s voice sounded much better, singing and talking, so that is good. i don’t think we’re in danger of a detroit cancellation.

setlist from ETS
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Head Down
The Frail
Closer
Gave Up
Warning
Vessel
5 Ghosts I
25 Ghosts III
19 Ghosts III
Ghosts Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion/Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
The Big Come Down
Ghosts 31
Only
Head Like a Hole

Echoplex
Reptile
God Given
Hurt
In This Twilight

so off to auburn hills tomorrow for the show, staying with ed and laurice for 2 nights. amira is coming to the show with us but is busy sunday so we won’t see her then, just exploring with david.

watching clueless on tv before sleep. ha. starving but i think room service is closed.

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

“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