Chickens! Concert Series #27: NIN

NIN started in 1988 by Trent Reznor (he's also the only official member) in Cleveland. Here is the NIN website and here is their myspace. To set the scene, NIN does what is described as "Industrial Rock" which is Industrial music (harder experimental music usually with electronic stuff) and punk rock that dabbles in Industrial Metal. Got it? To quote D, "It's like Tool, but good!" (D.G. pers.comm. 2008). Kids from my day may remember NIN for the single "Closer" from the 1994 album "Downward Spiral". This album also had the song "Hurt" which was covered by Johnny Cash in 2002 on his America IV album (my favorite JC album for sure).

Nine Inch Nails - Lights In The Sky 2008 tour ad from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.
The concert itself was very visually stimulating (there is a pile of videos up on the YouTube if you're interested). Lots of lights, a different background images and themes for each song. It was so highly choreographed that T.R. didn't talk to us at all and the music didn't pause between songs. The show was split into three different feels. The first part was some hard stuff and classics and then an instrumental interlude from the Ghosts albums and then some more recognizable stuff and newer things.

The Set List:

1. 999,999
2. 1,000,000
3. Letting You
4. Discipline
5. March Of The Pigs
6. Head Down
7. The Frail
8. The Wretched
9. Closer
10. Gave Up
11. The Warning
12. The Great Destroyer
13 - 15 some new instrumental stuff from the Ghosts albums
16. Piggy
17. The Greater Good
18. Wish
19. Terrible Lie
20. Survivalism
21. Ghosts 31
22. Only
23. The Hand That Feeds
24. Head Like A Hole

Highlights included:
The lead guitarist playing the banjo and the recorder during the Ghosts songs. The bassist played a stand up acoustic bass too! Bitchin'!
The sweet, highly choreographed light show that was so much better than Tool it wasn't funny. Well OK it's kinda funny.

Jerk sightings:
One guy trying to start a mosh pit. FYI one guy moshing is just a jerk running into people.
A couple grope-dancing and using more than their fair radius of space. Nice concert etiquette jerks!

Fun facts in NIN recent history:
The concept album "Year Zero" was written while Reznor was on tour for the 2005 album "With Teeth". The CD changes colour when it gets warm! The album critisized government, etc. and painted a picture of an dystopic future. An alternate reality game of the same name was released contemporaneously as a sort of unorthodox marketing campaign. He also released a "Year Zero Remixed" album that featured some of his songs redone by other artists and made downloads of some of the songs available for the public to remix. In 2007 T.R. broke with Interscope records and went solo. This was in the wake of a lot of Trent rage about his label selling Year Zero at inflated prices and arguements about his personal artistic rights. He went so far as to encourage fans to steal it off the internet. Since then he's gone along on this vein scince. In fact, NIN has licensed the new project Ghosts I-IV, a 36 track instrumental collection, under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. You may remember Creative Commons from this post.

p.s. A mini "This Music in History":
NIN - Hurt - Downward Spiral (1994)
Johnny Cash - Hurt - America IV (2002)

p.p.s. Recent news on the NIN website: Trent enraged that his music has been used at Guantanamo Bay. Read more in this article from the Associated Press.