Nine Inch Nails Salt Lake City '08

Not last Wednesday, but the Wednesday before that I got to enjoy something I’ve been waiting for since November 4th of 2005. If you think it’s a re-run of Law and Order; you are oh so beyond wrong. For instance here is the line of what I’m talking about...

And then here is where you'd be if you were somewhat close to what I’m talking about...

Here is where you are drowning because you’re an idiot!

I’m talking about getting to see one the greatest musicians of all time perform live at the “E-Center.” Still don’t know what I’m talking about? Then I shall spell it out for you, on Wednesday September 3rd of 2008 Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails graced the good city of great salt lakes with his presence. The reason I call Nine Inch Nails as Trent Reznor’s is how Trent has set this band up. If you follow the bands time line of putting out new full length CDs you’ll notice the decent sized gap , almost four to five years between each album. Trent disbands the members at the end of each album then finds new musicians to record and tour with him for the next album. Granted 99.9% of the creativity and writing is done solely by Trent and I’m sure he brings in the influences of the new members into his ideas and direction for the current album. By doing this it keeps the band with a constant fresh and new sound. Listening to all the CDs on shuffle you can easily tell this song is from Pretty Hate Machine or this one if from The Fragile without having to look.

There are so many reasons I could go off on why NIN is one of the greatest things to happen music. And all that Trent has done to evolve rock, Industrial, alternative music genres into what it is today. And how NIN is in my top 5 favorite bands. But that’s not what I’m here to write about. I’m here to share and try to help express the just how amazing Nine Inch Nails was in Concert.
Now being that I work for a radio station group here in Salt Lake City I get the opportunity to go to a lot of concerts, I average about 40 concerts a year. The bands I love and support I go through the promoter and pay for my tickets, all the others… yeah I’ll go for free. Sorry I’m not paying my hard earned money to see Green Day, or Kenye West; they’re a bunch of overpaid prima donnas’ who deserve to have their music illegally downloaded.
I got to The E Center at about 7:45pm; oh and before I get into talking about the concert one little gripe I have with concerts. If a venue is planning on making everyone pay to park then that should be included in the ticket price! Half the reason you sit in line to park is because people don’t plan on paying to park and hold up the entire line. Especially in a society where we are moving closer and closer to doing rid of printed money. After spending a half hour in line waiting to park I get frisked, my ticket ripped, and I’m off to find the suite my tickets are in after a quick look at the merch table. I sat down halfway through the opening band‘s set, a band called Deerhunter, who honestly sounded like a dark and more industrial Death Cab for Cutie. Which wasn’t bad, they did an alright job, its alwas nice to go see a concert and not have the night almost ruined by a horrible and shotty sounding opening band. But I found myself digging their music and started to tap my feet after a couple songs. After they had finished the arena lit up and I couldn’t help but notice just how empty half of the seats were, even in the GA floor which could have easily fit 500 more people. The E-center on a full stage concert fits 12,000 people; I’d say there were about 5,000 there. I’m sure I could use my connections with the promoter of the show to find out exactly how many tickets were sold, but honestly I don’t really want to put forth that much of an effort; only to be possibly disappointed. I kept hoping that more people would show as it got closer for NIN to take stage.
After about an hour’s wait the lights turned off and Nine Inch Nails took the stage (if you have ever seen footage or gone to one of their concerts you’d know why it takes an hour to set up their stage; look at my pictures to see the reason) They opened with “999,999” going into “1,000,000” “Letting You” and then to “Discipline” off of their latest digital release album The Slip.

The energy off the first three songs played I could have left the show and felt completely satisfied with the evening. But alas there was still an hour and forty-five minutes left.
Of course following the newest songs NIN pulled out the golden oldies with “March of the Pigs,” “The Frail/The Wretched,” “Closer,” and “Gave Up.” Then Trent changed it up and showed off what’s new in the world of concert visuals. The stage went dark and then all the band members were at the edge of the stage with a large LED backdrop behind them and proceeded to play “The Warning” and “Vessel” off of Year Zero, which is an album centered more on keyboards and other synthesized instruments. Of course the lights and animations on the LED screen synced up with the music. It was hands down the coolest thing these eyes have witnessed.

The next part was in my opinion the downer of the evening. All the energy that NIN had built up and got everyone going, was almost killed by the next three songs. The Stage went dark again and when the stage lit up to revile yet another LED screen, (separate from the one before, Here is a diagram of how these were set up…) They then began to play the three song set from Trent’s little side/instrumental project called Ghosts. Which if you have playing in the back ground while you clean, read, or just plain relax is an amazing project pulled off soundly! The idea behind this project was that they go into the studio and just played the first thing that came to mind, and didn’t edit or put any real post-production into it, very experimental. So it’s basically free mind writing but with instruments. See music like this is great but doesn’t really fit into a concert. Thankfully they ended this segment with a remixed Ghosts version of “Piggy” Which was incredible to hear a classic NIN song redone.

The Stage went dark yet again and the front LED screen lowered then begun to play an animation of what looked like cells from a microscope view with “The Greater Good” playing. Slowly you hear the faint sound of Trent singing and all the sudden you start to see a face come onscreen and you realize it’s Trent singing into the viewer of a camera being projected onto the screen with a filter to match the animation. It was really cool he’d move the camera so it would be just a close up of his lips singing to his eye, then back to his face. Again the stage went dark and was reviled back to its original form then proceeded to build and bring the energy back with “Wish,” “Terrible Lie,” Survivalism,” “The Hand That Feeds,” and “Head Like A Hole.” Trent thanked the crowd and walked off stage, The Front LED Screen Dropped and displayed the NIN logo glowed in red.

Of course this is the intermission for the encore. The screen then lifted and Trent walks out. Now every NIN concert I’ve been to Trent never really talks or addresses the crowd except only to introduce the new band members. But this show he actually addressed the crowd, He was saying how he didn’t get a chance to watch Deerhunter perform earlier but as he was walking on stage to begin the show he saw through a gap in the speakers the huge empty area in the back of the arena and thought to himself “Sh*t no one came to see us!” Then proceed to thank us and tell how grateful and appreciative he was for everyone who did show up. You know how every band that comes through they always say how “This show is the best so far on the tour,” or “Salt Lake is their favorite city to play.” When you know they are going to Pocatello or Denver and saying the same thing to them. But you could really tell Trent was being sincere and meant it. From the suite I was sitting in I have a good view of the majority of the arena and I noticed the change in the crown for the rest of the show, it was amazing to see the attitude change in the entire stadium. Everyone cheered louder, got into the music more, and just made the last four songs the best part of the show. I couldn’t have imagined the show ending any better. This concert is easily number two on my list of all-time favorite concerts.

And "Yes" I did take all these pictures at the show I have more, and some video's that I'll try to post them after I do some editing.