It seems financial Armageddon does have its benefits after all, as a sudden influx of co-headlining tours make their way to a city near you, offering audiences the privilege of witnessing two equally cash strapped big name acts for the price of one, but like all things in life, you don’t always get what you bargained for.
Being the angry misanthropic youth that I was, I worshiped all things Nine Inch Nails, and even wasted $15 of my hard earned Office Depot money on the completely unnecessary Things Falling Apart, which contained roughly 10 separate remixes of “Starf*ckers Inc.” or at least it seemed that way.
However, I would eventually grow out of my inherent disdain for the entire human race and begin to hone my disgust for the “a**holes in charge”, thus abandoning some of the rebellious urgency that’s isolated to those with no prior financial commitments and/or zero responsibility.
That’s not to say I wasn’t excited to see NIN perform live for the first time at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, I just lacked the requisite black nail polish, fishnet stockings, and misplaced anger to effectively blend in with the rest of the crowd.
Reznor then took the stage to thunderous applause and began the show just as he had during Lollapalooza’s maiden 1991 voyage, with the 1-2 nihilistic punch of “Now I’m Nothing” and “Terrible Lie”.
I and my fellow audience members turned and looked at each other with stunned disbelief. Why in the hell would NIN open the show?
Sure Jane’s Addiction had their heyday back in the early 90’s, but they were nowhere as popular as the brooding crown prince of industrial rock.
We merely ignored this stunning betrayal and went on with our meaningless existence, only to be rewarded with the petulant “March of the Pigs” and it’s seemingly out of place classical piano refrain, as well as Reznor’s comforting words, “And doesn’t it make you feel better?”
Strangely it did, as I celebrated like only a jaded twentysomething could, with a half-hearted smirk and sarcastic applause.
It was onward to the sacrilegious “Heresy”, another subversive hit from the heralded The Downward Spiral, an album I had spent most of my pubescent youth listening to, which partly explains my detachment issues and latent hostility.
Admirers began shouting out requests, but Reznor would have none of it as he seemingly played whatever the f*ck he wanted and ignored the crowd’s pleas.
“We won’t be playing any hits tonight,” an easily annoyed Reznor said from the stage.
Living up to his promise, Reznor trotted out a series of underappreciated gems that included the likes of “Survivalism”, “Wish”, and the heartbreaking “The Fragile”.
The parade of discarded b-sides continued with “Echoplex”, “The Day the World Went Away”, and my personal favorite “Mr. Self Destruct”, which he transformed from a relatively docile song about schizophrenia and personal neurosis into a bonafide metal anthem.
It was only at the end that Reznor finally satiated the fair weather terrestrial radio fan’s lust for predictability with the video game friendly “The Hand That Feeds” and Pretty Hate Machine’s most recognizable song, “Head Like A Hole”.
The most surreal moment of the evening came at the end of their set, when the entire audience proceeded to boo and heckle NIN for several minutes, but it wasn’t done out of a malicious impulse to criticize everything, rather a ravenous desire for more.
Alas it was not meant to be, there would be no encore that day and no involuntary weeping during “Hurt”, woe is me!
Anyway then Jane’s Addiction came out, and no disrespect to them, but I really could have cared less, the damage had already been done.
Perry Farrell rambled on about death and trips to Disneyland between performances of “Stop!”, “Mountain Song”, and of course “Jane Says”, and as expected Dave Navarro removed his shirt to the delight of restless women everywhere.
The End
Editors Note: I apologize for the timeliness of this review but I was distracted by other more pressing matters. Namely doing anything that didn’t involve reliving this traumatic experience.
Click here to watch music videos from Nine Inch Nails.
Click here to watch music videos from Jane’s Addiction.