Concert Review- nine inch nails

"Wish"

nine inch nails w/A Place to Bury Strangers, Saturday, August 16, Houston, TX@ Toyota Center
Going to see nine inch nails in 2008 sort of made me feel like an old man. I had seen NIN twice before, but both times were in 1994. I'd had plenty more chances over the years to go see Trent Reznor and his band, but the combination of desire and other people to go with didn't coincide until this past Saturday. 14 years is a long time to go between seeing a band, especially for me, but a host of dvd's and live albums have kept me sort of in the loop as far as the NIN stage show goes. About a year and a half ago, after Year Zero was released, Reznor announced he was letting his band go and ready to try something completely new with his live show. That didn't really hold up, as his band was still the same instrument lineup as always. Reznor played frontman, doing all the lead vocals while occasionally playing keyboards and guitar. Along for the ride were a drummer, keyboardist, bassist, and longtime guitarist Robin Finck, back with the band after spending a decade in Axl Rose's version of G'n'R. But the show itself was very new, and very cool.

New York trio A Place to Bury Strangers opened up, playing for a little over a half hour to a disinterested crowd that was still slowly filing in. For only three guys they had a big sound, but a big arena was not really the place to appreciate their dense, feedback-filled rock. After a relatively short break, NIN took the stage, opening with "999,999" and "1,000,000" from this year's free-to-the-internet album The Slip. With a large bare stage and bright white lights, it was a hard-charging, bare-bones way to start the show. The opening section of the concert featured a lot of mid and uptempo songs, as the lights gradually got more elaborate. A curtain filled with lights adorned the stage behind the drummer and keyboardist, bathing the stage in deep blue for "Discipline" and in equally deep red during "Closer."

After a while, another curtain came down, leaving about 5 feet of space along the very front of the stage. Reznor, Finck, and the bassist came up front with small racks of synths and played a handful of songs from 2007's Year Zero. Behind them on the curtain, blobs of orange and blue silhouetted the band, before becoming more elaborate with pulsing red patterns as this mini-set went on. I'd love to tell you which songs were played here, but the truth is that as much as I liked Year Zero, between that album, 2005's With Teeth, and this year's Ghosts I-IV and The Slip, Reznor has released a hell of a lot of music in a short period of time. And I just don't know every song by heart. Anyway, after a few songs in this setup, the band retreated to a complicated, instrument-filled platform in the middle of the stage, between two of the curtains. The band then proceeded to play several songs from Ghosts while the curtains projected various landscapes. At first it was a desert, then a swamp. The swamp setting featured Reznor playing a marimba on one of the highlight songs from Ghosts, the slightly spooky song that, naturally, features a marimba.

The curtain effects increased with the energy of the music. When the band got to With Teeth's "Only", the curtains projected television static, which parted only in small spaces to reveal Reznor. A transitional effect featured blue sky-like images on the curtain which was invaded by extreme close-ups of Reznor, after which a roadie came out with a flashlight and erased all the blue. Next it was back to basics with Broken's "Wish" and Pretty Hate Machine's "Terrible Lie." The rest of the set continued to feature new songs and classics, including "Head Like a Hole" near the end of the main set. The band returned for an encore, playing "Echoplex" and "Hurt." Reznor also couldn't resist returning to "Reptile" from The Downward Spiral and its deep green lighting scheme. The show ended with another Year Zero song, against the backdrop of a city, slowing erupting into flames.

Despite the tendency of the band's newer material to run together, the show was completely worthwhile. Reznor has gone all-out with his stage show for this tour, and it's visually amazing. The band itself has a lot of energy, and Reznor is still a great frontman. The show has a lot of different styles and moods, which keeps it from being an all-out angstfest. The Ghosts material mid-show is a welcome chill-out, and the more aggressive material is still a blast. Between Radiohead at the beginning of the summer and nine inch nails at the end, it's good to see forward-thinking bands from the 90's taking full advantage of 21st century technology to create unique stage environments.

"Only"


"Hurt"