NIN
The as promised report:
Although I’m definitely paying for it today with how tired I am… last night’s Nine Inch Nails concert was amazing!
I was actually a big fan of the opening band, “A Place to Bury Strangers,” they have a shoegazy, industrial, surf kind of sound. My friend called them “a really heavy Joy Division,” which isn’t too far off. It was cool to hear their rich, thick guitar tones live, but their drummer had so many time problems that their set was almost unbearable. You couldn’t find the beat to save your life because the drummer was all over the place. If they had some solid time, it would’ve been a great set, I was sad that one bad element pulled them down so far.
Nails, however, was as good as ever. Hearing some of the new songs from “Year Zero” and “The Slip” was great, and they always amp them up, adding parts, changing things up, so it doesn’t sound like you’re listening to the CD again. I was especially surprised that they played a few pieces from their experimental instrumental album “ghosts.” Halfway through the show, they brought out a wide range of percussion and other weird instruments. They had marimbas, upright basses, flutes, bells, mixing with live electronica elements — all while some amazing video was going on. The video production was by far the best I’ve ever seen of any show. The band was interacting with the video, “touching” the screen to change it, and having video elements follow them around stage, all in a way that wasn’t pre-set or timed, it was being manipulated in real time, and that was amazing. I can’t figure out how they did half the stuff they were doing. And need I say how great Josh Freese is on drums? Holy crap!
All said and done, it was a great show from one of my favorite bands ever. I love seeing musicians that are hard rockers, yet still are very skilled, professional musicians. They’re definitely a band I want to see every time they come through town.
Do any of you have bands like that, where you just have to see ‘em, no matter how many times you’ve seen ‘em before?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I went to 2 DMB concerts this last weekend and you don’t see ME rubbing it in everyone’s face on a blog, geez, show off.
But I look forward to your report. I bet it involves someone being f’ed like an animal. You sick, sick, NIN fan.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:20 am
to answer your question at the end of your blog, yes. as mentioned in my previous post, I saw DMB twice this last weekend, in Houston and here in Dallas. those were my 17th and 18th DMB concerts and I will be there again next summer.
also, i would go see that band 1000 MFA any time they play…but their shows are FAR more rare than DMB or NIN.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I laugh at your counting and reporting of the times you’ve seen a band as if its some kind of glorious achievement. Bands count the number of times I come see them and try to scoreboard other bands with the amount of appearances I make.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Champ actually speaks the truth, We have a tally system on our “tour bus” (I use quotes because I don’t believe in things with wheels)
although since I am such a successful musician I am not in charge of said tally board and have hired someone to keep said record
August 20th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I’ve seen DMB a number of times (not 17 and 18 like some freaks, but…). However, for me, the band I will see everytime is Foo Fighters. They just rock! Dave is a talented musician, maybe not like Trent, but bottom line…they melt faces. Also, theirs are the loudest concerts I’ve ever been too.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Speaking of multiple concerts, I actually have seen Damien Rice 5 times. I think that will be the limit though, no offense Damien.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I actually will hold up Dave Grohl and the rest of the foo-fighters as being GREAT musicians in the rock genre. It seems like both he and Trent are putting out a ridiculous volume of work lately, Trent is doing atleast 2 albums a year or more, and Foo is doing almost that much, it seems. That is so awesome, so respectable, and the great thing is that all the material is good!
I still haven’t seen Foo live, but they are definitely one of my favorites.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
WOAH!!! Did you guys here the tragic news about LeRoi from DMB?! According to Yahoo! he died due to injuries from an accident! I can’t open the article because the filter here keeps blocking it. Damn! That sucks!
August 20th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Yeah, I just heard as well. I’m not a big fan of DMB, but this is some seriously sad news. Apparently, after the band heard about it, they still played the show they were scheduled to play that night, and I hear it got pretty emotional. I amazed that they didn’t just cancel the rest of the tour… I can’t imagine being in a band and losing a member like that. Even though I don’t own a single record of theirs, my heart goes out to those guys.
Joe, I know you’re a big fan of theirs, care to toss in your two cents, or favorite memories?
August 20th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
It is a sad, sad day in the DMB community. I think the only thing that prevented them from cancelling the whole tour like you said Mike was that Roi has actually been out for almost 2 months now since his initial accident in VA. They’ve had a good friend of theirs filling in on sax for him so it wasn’t like he was on stage 2 nights ago and then was gone. He has been in and out of the hospital since early July and the band has been carrying on the summer tour without him.
But yeah, this is really tragic news, if you like DMB or not, you still have to have respect for their work ethic, their commitment to their fans, their originality, their longevity, and their uniqueness and LeRoi was as much a part of that as any other members of the band and it is really, really sad to lose him.
I feel really fortunate to have seen my favorite band so many times and to have seen him perform so many times. My thoughts are definitely with his family and his extended DMB family.