Shuroki Online

I’ve been a huge Nine Inch Nails fan since some time in 1991. When I first heard NIN, I was playing in a thrash metal band and I was occasionally writing these little weird techno-ish songs on the side.

What Trent was creating spoke to me on many different levels, and I never got to see him perform live – until Wednesday night.

A Little Background
I’ve always had an ecclectic taste in music. Growing up in Southern California suburbia I listened to most 80′s Top 40 bands like everybody else; starting with the “”Mighty 690″” and then onto KROQ as a teenager. My brother and sisters are a bit older than me and listened mostly to 70s acid rock, though my brother moved into hair metal and one sister followed the modern pop bands pretty close. Mom loved the classics (as in Beethoven and Mozart, not the Beatles) and the golden oldies of her youth. Dad was a country boy. Me – I listened to it all! Well, not the country so much, though some of the songs were funny.

In junior high and the start of high school I was really into Depeche Mode, Adam and the Ants, and The Cure.. but somewhere in the middle I went pure metal: Metallica, Megadeth, Testament and then more punk with Agent Orange, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, and Bad Religeon.

Somehow that huge jumble of stuff was just starting to solidify into a kinda dancy/techno, metal, noise jumble in my head and I was trying to find ways to translate that into music. I actually got a rough recording of one song that I thought sounded pretty good.. and then I heard its twin on the radio – Head Like A Hole. Everything changed.

I ran out and bought Pretty Hate Machine and listened to it a few times. Right there on that black casette tape was everything I was trying to squeeze out of my brain. It was just incredible. And it kept getting better and better.

Each album took the themes and feeling a little bit further. Then I heard the recordings with David Bowie and Adam Ant – two of my all time idols.. Forgetaboutit. Shortly after this I discovered the techno/industrial world populated by the likes of KMFDM, Apoptygma Berzerk, Sister Machine Gun, and Skinny Puppy.

Through all this, I never actually saw NIN perform live. Not until last night, anyway. My beautiful wife diligently hit the ‘net and pounced on a set of tickets a few months ago, when they first became available. She’s never particularly liked NIN, but knew how into them I am and thankfully went to the show with me.

The Show

The concert took place at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. A band I’ve never heard of called Death From Above kicked off the proceedings at 7:00pm. DFA consisted of two people, a drummer/singer and a guitar player who ocassionally tapped on a keyboard. The novelty didn’t last very long. Partially because it’s already been done (and done much better ala The White Stripes), but mostly because the low tuning of the guitar (presumably to thicken the sound and give a bassey effect) and the riffs were very monotonous and the songs tended to sound the same.

At the high points of the 30 minute set it sounded like two guys goofing around in the garage because the other band members didn’t show up. It was kinda cool, stumbling onto an interesting riff here and there, but not enough to keep you interested. At the low point it was pure distorted noise with a somewhat consistent drum beat. They would do well taking a cue from Rush and adding some Moog synth pedals to fill in the bass line (allowing the guitar to turn up an octave) and have both guys sing to create some dynamic harmony. The style would have to change a bit, but I think it could work well.

QOTSA

Next up were Queens of the Stone Age. I actually didn’t realize they were playing until a couple days before the concert. My mind had just been on seeing NIN, it didn’t occur to me that there would be other cool bands playing with them.

I have two QOTSA albums which I acquired after hearing No One Knows on the radio. I don’t think I’ve listened to either one all the way through, though. Its not that I don’t like the songs, per se, its just that for some reason I can’t take them in large doses. Well, I discovered that the same held true live as well. I only recognized three songs they played – though, two of them I honestly thought were the same song. Their sound quality was good, but there was absolutely no stage presence.

They had a simple backdrop and simple lighting, which is fine (that’s all Weezer had at their show) but they didn’t hardly move, and there was just an overall dull feeling in the crowd. It could be that they are simply not a good match for the NIN crowd, or their music just doesn’t translate well on stage.

I have a feeling they get a similar reception at most shows – as evidenced by one of the few things Josh Homme actually said between songs was “”I hope you have a great night and keep your thumbs out of your asses”". Uhh… lemme guess, its either the 20,000 people paying to watch, or its the band on stage – you do the math.

Why We’re Here

Similar to Queens, Trent never spoke more than a “”thank you”" once or twice through the entire show, but that’s where all comparison ends. The lights went out, and you could hear the familiar distorted chords of Pinion and just at the crescendo to begin wish the lights on stage came up to reveal it was covered in a gossamer shroud and filled with smoke. The effect was very cool.

Depending on where the lights came from, you got eerie long shadows on the front of the shroud, or shady smokey figures of the band, or just a furious soup of smoke and light. It was amazingly close to watching a music video on television.

The net came up as the band blasted through some songs on the new album With Teeth and continued the assault with favorites from every one of their albums. They, of course, played all of the “”hits”" you’d expect; Closer, Head Like A Hole, Hurt, The Hand That Feeds, Only, and March of the Pigs.

The only surprise was that they didn’t play Starf***ers, Inc. (I heard vocal disappointment from a few people on the way out). Come to think of it, I don’t think they played anything from The Fragile. Though, from an article I read Trent hated that album and felt that he was faking most of it and that the fans could tell. I dunno, I loved most of it. Call me naive, but I got a lot out of that album.

The gossamer curtain came down to act as a projection screen for a mostly instrumental, then quasi-political segment. The video started with weird patterns – first artificial, then natural (cells, insects, flocks) – and evolved into a combination of disturbing nature scenes, then stuffy party footage, and finally into war and death with a brief appearance by President Bush. I was thankful that Trent let the music and the lyrics do the talking and didn’t pause the show to make a political rant. Duran Duran did that and it totally killed the mood.

Overall I couldn’t be happier with the concert. The sound quality was phenomenal with crisp and deep bass that vibrated your spleen all up through the spectrum. The playing was perfect. Trent’s voice was strong and clear, never faltering, and the instrumentation was near perfect, rarely straying from the feeling on the albums.

My only disappointment was that there was no encore. Perhaps difficult since they pretty well thrashed the guitars and mic stands on the way off the stage, not to mention they played for nearly two hours. I really would have loved to hear Sin, Happiness in Slavery, We’re in This Together Now and a few others from The Fragile. But that’s OK.

I got a LOT more out of this show than I thought I would. I was fully expecting to enjoy myself, but I wasn’t prepared for the fullness or power of the sound, or for that matter the emotion exuded from the stage. Definitely one of my all time favorite concerts with my highest of recommendations!

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