Maybe-Someday.com

Posted on September 16th, 2009 at 1:29am

I still don’t know if nine inch nails has completely ended, or if it’s some many-year-long hiatus. Everyone is quick to say things like “No, that’s just what bands do. They’ll be back for the final-final goodbye shows in a year or two.” As much as I may sound like a rabid-fan-boy crying “no, not my band!”, I’m gonna cry out and say “No, not my band!”, all the same.

So for the last few days in August, when the “Wave Goodbye” tour started in New York, I followed online all the talk and happenings of the final shows. The second show into the tour Trent plays all of The Downward Spiral from start to finish. I remember reading that online and groaning aloud in a jealous, frustrated “god I wish i could have seen that!” Trent even made a point to say it’s something he’s always wanted to do live, and will never be done again.

I also read about the special guests Trent brings on stage each night. It’s starting to look like he’s got at least one solid surprise up his sleeve for each night of the show (Peter Murphy hung upside-down?!), which of course begs the question “What’s in store for the show I’m going to!?”

It was a half day at work for me. I drove home, picked up my brother, and then hit the road north to LA. It was all so casual to me. It was weird to me then, just as it’s weird to me now, but I didn’t really start to get excited until maybe an hour before the show started. Driving up to LA, finding the venue (where I previously saw Sylvia Browne years ago), stressing to find a place to park, getting the tickets from the box office, and waiting in line to be let in for almost 2 hours… I was just cool as a cucumber the whole time. It felt almost routine.

The two opening acts were bands I’d never heard of before. Queen Kwong (the only notable thing to say about them is the lead singer girl is super hot, and I rarely ever say that about girls), and Mew (who I could never, ever take seriously because they took themselves seriously enough for the lot of us).

Lights go dark, everyone rushes the stage and Todd and I turn on our cameras. Trent comes barreling down the center of the stage, strobe lights flashing, and so begins Mr. Self Destruct. Mosh pits, shoving, jumping. Fighting to stand still. First song ends, Piggy starts. It wasn’t until the end of the song, drowning in a sea of people singing “nothing can stop me now” along with Trent that I fully realized where I was. It hits me, just as Heresy starts… nothing quite like being surrounded by hundreds of people screaming “your god is dead.” I’m noticing a pattern, but don’t wanna say it out loud. Don’t want to jinx it.

I warn Todd, “Next song is probably going to be March of the Pigs. Hold on.” And it was, and we did. We were shoved around, pushed and pulled. It’s sometimes better to just go limp than to fight it. After Closer ended, and it jumped right into Ruiner I figured it was safe to say it: The Downward Spiral from start to finish… he’s doing it again. And I’m ecstatic.

Some of these songs I never in a million years thought I’d hear performed live. The crazy instrumental ones on the back-half of the album. Suddenly its 1995.

By the time Hurt ends its easily been an hour and a half, but they keep going.

Another hour later (of mostly old material, no less) Trent brings out Gary Numan. Together they perform Metal, and then Cars. I assumed that would be the end of it, but the show kept going on. The show ended with Head Like a Hole, fittingly the first song on his first album.

There was no encore. Just played straight through what had to be close to a 3 hour setlist.

1. Mr. Self Destruct
2. Piggy
3. Heresy
4. March of the Pigs
5. Closer
6. Ruiner
7. The Becoming
8. I Do Not Want This
9. Big Man With A Gun
10. A Warm Place
11. Eraser
12. Reptile
13. The Downward Spiral
14. Hurt
15. 1,000,000
16. Terrible Lie
17. Lights In The Sky
18. Burn
19. Gave Up
20. Suck
21. Metal
22. Cars
23. The Hand That Feeds
24. Head Like a Hole

When the lights came back on, Todd and I picked our jaws up off the floor and limped our way out and back to the car.

We got our asses handed to us, and we’d do it again in an instant.

I took over 140 pictures, and most of the turned out just like you would expect pictures from within a pit to turn out. The small handful of photos worth passing on can be found on my Flickr. Todd recorded a lot of video, and while the quality is pretty great, most of the audio is shot. Simply too loud for a tiny mic to handle. I might try to clean up a song or two and post it, but pretty much every angle of every song is already online somewhere.

It was my fourth time seeing nine inch nails live. I know it won’t be my last, but it’s going to be a very, very long time.

Goodnight Moon.
Oh, my precious whore.