The Search for Ice Cream

I won’t bore you with an essay on “My History With Nine Inch Nails” and how I saw them open for Peter Murphy back in the day, saw all their tours etc., own all the CD’s etc. Probably all of you reading this know all of that. Let’s skip to 2005…

Trent Reznor returns to the world in 2005 without a home. The scene and sound he popularized with the masses has now gone the way of hair-metal and relegated to an almost internet only community. However, that leaves the millions of citizens, converted by later material such as CLOSER to bring this man his second consecutive number one album: WITH TEETH. While many are, I’m not a hater of the new album. I’ve written about it here I think. It lacks the epic quality of the previous stuff, and Brandt brought up a very good point recently: where’s the fucking programming! THAT’S what I realized hurt this album for me. Yes there’s some synth in there, but man, could the dude program back in the day. And the lyrics, well…Anyhow, on to the show…

Mattagement, being, well the fucking manager who is supposed to do these things, was able to secure some tickets for the first NY show and I honestly went into the gig with no expectations. I knew it was going to be a first class production, that was never an issue, but again, NIN in 2005 just feels weird. As Marc Heal said to me recently: F.J., you’re 32 years old, just how angry can you be to be in something called ‘the aggression’” (which, by the way is why we have Hypefactor). The point being, Trent, you’re going to be 40, how fucking angry can you be? Millions of dollars (actually not. Read here: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1502433/20050517/reznor_trent.jhtml?headlines=true), a number 1 album and 15 years of being in a an actually successful industrial band. How rough is that!

And so the lights came down and here was TR (clad in white shirt) and a group of guys and they started hard and strong, old-school with WISH, which I thought was smart. It’s obvious that this min-tour is to reintroduce this band to the masses (read: citizens) and for NYC, this was a good choice to start with. Riding the high of this tune, he then built the tension perfectly with the classic SIN. Good stuff. However, halfway through the song the backing track went out. Now, only a geek like me would notice this, but what made it a total positive in my mind were two things: 1. We got a rare glimpse of what these guys are really playing (quite a bit, I’m happy to say) 2. We got to see Trent REALLY get pissed off when they tried to do the next song and it was all off cue. ACES.

So he threw his bottle of water, took his band and left. he returns 5 minutes later in a wifebeater, thus showing he watches wrestling just as much as I do because this fucking guy is obviously on the Triple H diet. Irene suggested a new gimmick for Trent. ROID RAGE. Cause honestly, the guy is so jacked up, I half expect to see him do a run in on Batista tonight on Raw. Anyway, scary jacked.

So he comes back and cracks a great joke about how someone “knocked the plug out” and how “guys in the back won’t have jobs after the gig”, which I found to be brilliant. So now, determined to get momentum back, he’s legit pissed and starts to throw down some new tunes and oldies like TERRIBLE LIE, MARCH OF THE PIGS and SOMETHING I CAN NEVER HAVE. The band is tight and into it. There’s a new guitarist who is basically Trent at 25 who humps his amp and breaks things. You need that cause Trent at 40 should not be doing that kind of thing. Also, in his current Rambo phase, he would go bankrupt (and he might already be) just wrecking shit. The guy who used to be Tiwggy in Manson is on bass and is good. They’re all capable, they’re all well-rehearsed and all seem very happy to be there and give their all. Nothing more, nothing less

The middle of the set seemed to lack the energy of the start with songs like COLLECTOR, HOME and EVEN DEEPER from the last album slowing things down a bit. I think he should have done some weird stuff at some point and played stuff like HERESY and other older album tracks as opposed to the same hits he’s played every time. However, the additions of REPTILE, which was ferocious, and a revamped synth oriented version of BURN got things moving again. And even though he then went into the predictable closers STARFUCKERS and HEAD LIKE A HOLE, the performance was solid and we left the Ballroom satisfied in a nostalgic kinda way.

So while I would have preferred a gutsier set and there was nothing really super memorable, Nine Inch Nails exists in 2005 to maintain their reputation as a solid live show. Yes, you’ve grown up quite a bit, and yes, you can hate the new album, and yes he’s not pushing the boundaries he once was, but Trent has earned his spot in history. Sure, it’s nostalgia and a tad forced, and it doesn’t mean what it once did, but the man and his music has had a significant impact on our generation (especially for a grunge hating kid like myself), and I wouldn’t write the man off just yet.

F