Nine Inch Nails 9/2/22

I play fantasy football with eleven of my buddies and every year since 2014 right around Labor Day Weekend we, along with a handful of other usual suspects have traveled to a new city to do our draft, drink a shitload and generally cause a ruckus. So far, we have hit Phoenix, Ensenada, Vegas, Portland, Cabo, Austin, Nashville, Key West and this year we decided to do Denver. One of the guys in the league lives in Denver so logistically that made it a little easier than normal to plan everything. By sheer coincidence/luck Nine Inch Nails announced a small tour with two consecutive nights at Red Rocks that coincided with the dates we were going to be there so all of us agreed that would be a cool thing to do while we were there.

The guy who lives in Denver was also getting married two weeks later so we used this as an excuse to treat the concert like a surprise bachelor party. We had custom jerseys with his face made up and once all 18 of us were on the party bus to Red Rocks we unveiled the jerseys and put on wigs, neon shutter glasses and white gloves. It was quite a sight to have 18 guys in the same costume spill out of the bus once we got there and nobody there knew what the hell was going on but everyone was cool (as most people at rock concerts are). My buddy Marvin who is notorious for securing a last-minute ticket at the concert was the only one of us that did not have a ticket but the bachelor told the ticket taking lady of our conundrum and she just let him in without a ticket!

A band called Yves Tumor opened and they were not my cup of tea. Then again after not having seen Nine Inch Nails for eight years I don’t think there were many bands that could have satisfied me as an opener as I just wanted to get to why we were all there. The whole time Yves Tumor was onstage mother nature seemed to be brewing up a storm that was on a collision course with us. I thought it would have been cool, both figuratively and literally, to get rained on but mother nature had something better up her sleeve…

Red Rocks is widely considered one of the best outdoor amphitheaters or concert venues in general and for good reason. The place is incredible. I was lucky enough to experience this beautiful spot once before when I saw STP here back in 2008 but having 17 guys with me was an altogether new experience. As soon as Trent and Co. took the stage mother nature put on a hell of lightning storm as a backdrop to the electricity flowing from the stage for the duration of the show and we never did get rained on. The setlist was fantastic but there were a few glaring omissions with no “March of the Pigs,” “Terrible Lie” or “Closer.” “March of the Pigs” was what I wanted to hear the most but I guess he had to save something up his sleeve for the second night (he played that and “Closer” on night two). “Reptile” always sounds so much heavier when played live so that along with “The Wretched,” “Burn” and the selections from Broken more than made up for any “omissions.”

SETLIST: Somewhat Damaged, The Day the World Went Away, Wish, Last, Sin, This Isn’t the Place, Reptile, Discipline, Ahead of Ourselves, The Line Begins to Blur, Echoplex, The Frail, The Wretched, The Perfect Drug, Survivalism, Every Day Is Exactly the Same, Burn, Gave Up, Head Like A Hole, Only, The Big Come Down, And All That Could Have Been, Hurt

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Nine Inch Nails/Soundgarden 8/21/14

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As soon as Soundgarden announced a co-headlining tour with Nine Inch Nails it was not a matter of if I was going to see it, it was a matter of when, where and with who. Joe was quick to call me after the announcement and suggest we go to one of the dates together, which was super cool since I had not seen him for a little while. Even better he suggested coming down to San Diego and bringing Claude along for the ride as well.

After much anticipation the day finally came and we of course took it upon ourselves to start drinking beer fairly early in the afternoon. I decided to have an Uber SUV pick us up and then go pick up Bob and Ken separately on the way, which ended up being about $100 since the amphitheater is way down in Chula Vista. We got our money’s worth by drinking the entire way and taking over the stereo to blast Pantera at full volume. The poor Uber driver did not strike me as a Pantera fan and could not wait to get us out of his ride. Once we got dropped off we met up with Tom and had more beer in the parking lot. Add double fisting free tall boys courtesy of Tom’s friend Manny to the equation once we got inside the amphitheater and it’s a wonder any of us remember anything. There are certain friends that tend to feed off of each other and push drinking to the extreme and these were those friends.

This was the third time I had the pleasure of seeing Soundgarden. Unfortunately Matt Cameron bowed out of the tour due to prior commitments with Pearl Jam but whoever they had fill in got the job done. Surprisingly they only played one song from King Animal despite that being their newest album. Most of the songs they played were from Badmotorfinger and Superunknown and I later realized that this tour happened to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Superunknown.

SETLIST: Searching With My Good Eye Closed, Spoonman, Flower, Outshined, Jesus Christ Pose, Black Hole Sun, The Day I Tried to Live, My Wave, Blow Up the Outside World, Fell on Black Days, A Thousand Days Before, Rusty Cage, Beyond the Wheel

Nine Inch Nails was touring for the album Hesitation Marks that had been out for almost exactly a year to the day and I had not seen them in a little more than five years. It was fitting that Robin Finck aka “Lizard Man” was back with the band because of the experience I had with these same people at the Gorge. He certainly adds another level to the show with his badassery. Nine Inch Nails shows are sensory overload and this show was no exception. I found this setlist online but I swear they played “Reptile.”

SETLIST: Copy of A, Sanctified, Came Back Haunted, 1,000,000, March of the Pigs, Piggy, Terrible Lie, Closer, Gave Up, Disappointed, Find My Way, The Great Destroyer, Eraser, Wish, The Hand That Feeds, Head Like a Hole, Hurt

 

Nine Inch Nails 5/20/09

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Everything goes in waves and it definitely took awhile for my next set to come in with regards to concerts. Eight months had passed since I had been to a proper concert (Street Scene) so this finally broke my dry spell. That is not all that broke as I had broken it off with Donna some months earlier and had starting dating a gal named Nikki. She had good taste in music so I made the drive to Irvine with her and two of her friends to see the cleverly named NINJA tour.

I had only seen Jane’s Addiction’s one other time back at Lollapalloza 2003 when they were newly reunited promoting their new album Strays, which was the only other album in their catalog besides the classic/excellent albums Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo habitual. They seemed like an odd pairing with Nine Inch Nails but they were in their element and put on a good show.

SETLIST: Three Days, Whores, Ain’t No Right, Pigs in Zen, Then She Did…, Mountain Song, Had a Dad, Been Caught Stealing, Ted, Just Admit It…, Ocean Size, Summertime Rolls, Stop!, Jane Says

I had not seen since Nine Inch Nails since they were promoting With Teeth back in November of 2005. The Slip that was released a year before this was still their newest album. Following Radiohead’s lead the album was released digitally on the Nine Inch Nails official website for free under a Creative Commons license with a message from Trent that read “this one’s on me.” NIN is a live force to be reckoned with but I peaked too early by seeing them at the Gorge for my very first time. It was nice to see them outdoors again but Irvine’s amphitheater is just a cookie cutter amphitheater with nothing special about it. I quite enjoyed seeing “Echoplex” live but was most happy to see Robin Finck aka “Lizard Man” back in the lineup.

SETLIST: Now I’m Nothing, Terrible Lie, 1,000,000, Heresy, March of the Pigs, Metal, Reptile, The Becoming, Survivalism, Mr. Self Destruct, The Fragile, Gone, Still, The Way Out is Through, Wish, Echoplex, The Day the World Went Away, The Hand That Feeds, Head Like a Hole

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Nine Inch Nails 11/20/05

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Trent promised that they would come back and honor the tickets from the September 16th show since they had to cut that show short due to Jerome Dillon’s heart attack. They made good on the promise so this was the second show I was able to see from the one ticket that I had already bought for much less than face value.

Nine Inch Nails 9/16/05

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There I was standing on the floor of the packed arena at San Diego State University watching Queens of the Stone Age for the first time. They were touring for the album Lullabies to Paralyze that had come out in March. I had come alone, which by this point was nothing new, because I couldn’t recruit any of my friends to come to the show with me. Shortly after the band started to play “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” I was lucky enough to meet two generous stoners who didn’t mind sharing their joint with me. I say lucky because this was a rare occasion where I didn’t just sneak in my own. Not that I “had” to have one, but it always enhanced my experience. The beauty of this concert was not only that I got to see Queens of the Stone Age for the first time, but the fact that they were opening for Nine Inch Nails. This was to be the second time I had the pleasure of seeing them. Towards the end of the interim between bands camera flashes started going off in anticipation of Trent Reznor and the rest of his band hitting the stage. This is when it finally hit me. I had always wanted to write a book but had never quite figured out what I wanted to write about. When I was younger I never really took that many pictures but the camera flashes got me thinking about how other people document their life through the pictures they take. It is said that a photograph is worth a thousand words. With that in mind someone can look at one of their photographs and tell you exactly where they were, who they were with, and all the circumstances surrounding that moment in time. When I started thinking about this it dawned on me that I document my life in the same manner through my concert ticket stubs because I’ve kept one from each concert I have ever been to. I can look at the stub and tell you the exact date, who attended the concert with me, where I worked at the time, who I was dating, etc. That is what spawned this blog (originally intended as a book).

This concert was special because it was a “2 for the price of 1.” Let me explain. By this point the internet had taken over the ticket world and more specifically the legal ticket scalping world. Basically even if you logged on to Ticketmaster, etc. right when the tickets first went on sale you would still end up getting really crappy seats that were expensive because the legal scalpers had figured out a way to suck up all the good tickets that were not already given out to radio stations, etc. I say this because I had pretty much all but given up on buying tickets the traditional way and instead tried to buy tickets off of people looking to get rid of them at the last minute. This was one of those times but I ended up buying it for way less than face value (I want to say $20) from a legal scalper. He said that they just bought too many and now were trying to unload them for something.

Nine Inch Nails was touring for With Teeth that had come out in May and this was the first night of the tour. They came out behind what looked like a giant mesh screen that images were projected onto and proceeded to take us on a thorough musical journey. Jeordie White (better known as Twiggy from Marilyn Manson) was in this incarnation of the Nine Inch Nails touring band. So they played what seemed like a full set but all of a sudden they stopped playing and disappeared for quite awhile. Nobody knew what the hell was going on until Trent came out and apologized to the crowd saying they had an unexpected emergency and would be coming back to make it up at a later date. It turns out what happened is they had to cut their set short because the drummer Jerome Dillon had a heart-related health issue that caused him to be rushed to the hospital. They ended up coming back on November 20th to play the “make up date” which was just fine with me.

Nine Inch Nails 6/9/00

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This concert ranks as my #2 favorite concert of all time right behind Tool at the Gorge. It was a similar set of circumstances in many ways. The three words that come to mind are intense, spiritual, and surreal. Lucinda and I made the approximately four hour drive to meet up with Jason, Roscoe, and Joe. We were armed to the teeth with LSD and ready for the time of our life. This was to be the first time any of us had seen Nine Inch Nails, the first time Lucinda had been to the Gorge and the first time she had taken LSD. To top it off A Perfect Circle was the opener. They had just released Mer de Noms a few weeks prior to this show and by the time of the show we were already in love with the album. I remember laughing hysterically on the hill with Lucinda before either band came on because the acid was starting to take hold. It was creeping up on us progressively the whole time A Pefect Circle was on stage. They played almost every song on the first album. Maynard was clad in a long dark wig and commented that it was “a nice day for a picnic” as the sun set behind them with the beautiful backdrop of the gorge. During the breakdown in “Magdalena” he began to spin around in a circle faster and faster as the musical landscape intensified. Then came time for Nine Inch Nails. They were touring for their double album The Fragile, which had come out the previous September. Their show was just absolutely amazing and not just because I was on acid. They had these three giant screens that moved about, accentuating every little thing. The band reminded me of army ants onstage because there were times when the band was moving around the stage as frantically as the music was fierce. The guitarist Robin Finck was aptly nicknamed “Lizard Man” by my friends and I from this point on because of his costume and general stage presence. I swear he was shaking guitar notes out of his leg. Incredible. There is a wonderful DVD out called “And All That Could Have Been” that documents the entire tour, with snippets from this actual concert. It is a great reminder for me of one of the best nights of my life and will give all those not in attendance a little glimpse of what they missed out on.

And All That Could Have Been