Fragility 1.0 Concert Special (and Big Day Out 2000, too) [Archive]

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Leviathant

02-10-2013, 01:13 AM

tldr: Promotional videos of Fragility 1.0 and Big Day Out 2000 have been liberated from dusty shelves. (http://thepiratebay.se/user/yourfutureenemy)

Here's the backstory of how that happened.

Back in December of 1999, a press release went out announcing Nine Inch Nails' first-ever television concert special, to be aired on MTV, featuring footage from the recently-wrapped concerts in Europe - the first (aside from a secret rehearsal in Los Angeles) in support of the newly released double album "The Fragile." I actually had been in contact with Interscope at the time, and I remember talking on the phone with someone in PR there who offered to send me the concert on VHS. As the cliche goes, I was young and naive, and declined. I would make a trip back to my parents house - I was in college and didn't have cable - and would tape the special as it aired. If memory serves me, Scared Straight was on (and uncensored, oh my!) just prior to the show. Without much warning, notes from The Way Out Is Through are playing while blocky projections bubbled across a screen in front of the band that I barely caught on tour some four years earlier.

But the colors in the footage were a little bit blown out. The audio was compressed (dynamically, not compressed-like-MP3s), and at least in my market, was mono. There was an MTV logo superimposed in the lower corner throughout all of the playback. I was disappointed in all the post-processing. At some point not too long after all this, nincollector.com posted a photo of the promo VHS (http://www.nincollector.com/archive/releases/halo_14/14_fragility_d_vhs_promo.htm) of the concert. I took this to be a good sign - Interscope cut a lot of promos. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to find one, if I kept my eyes peeled.

The concert was re-aired a few weeks later on MTV. Some years later, it would be broadcast on MTV2, this time an intrepid fan captured the audio in stereo, and the colors were a bit better, but where the original broadcast was padded by footage of Trent playing piano in his New Orleans home, that had been completely excised from the M2 broadcast.

All the while, I kept looking. I posted to The NIN Hotline, asking any readers if they had a copy they'd sell or trade. I'd hit message boards, collectors forums, constantly scanning eBay. There was a rumor about some guy in Russia who might have a copy. But it wasn't until a dozen years later that I heard the news - NINcollector.com was selling his collection. Even though I'd contacted him the same day the news broke, I was afraid I might be too late - "How much for the Fragility 1.0 tape?" It was more than I'd paid for pretty much anything else secondhand, but I'd been looking for twelve years.

At first, there was a delay. The seller said it was actually in a box at his parents' house, and he wouldn't be able to get it for another week or two. If it was anyone else selling, I would have been (more) worried, but I had no reason to think this was a scam, and my patience paid off when some time later, a box from England arrived at my house, containing the tape in the picture on nincollector.com

I broke out the VCR that I'd kept, solely for the purpose of having a stereo VCR from which to rip this tape should I ever find it, and... I put another tape in it, and hit play. Through my capture card, a 1991 Video Bar bootleg played on my monitor, and everything looked alright, so I pressed eject - and nothing happened. I pressed it again, to no avail. Play, fast forward, rewind, all worked fine. After opening the VCR up, I had to physically remove the cassette, and still-deployed tape, from the device, slightly mangling the tape in the process. Those of you who've never had to interact with VHS, consider yourself blessed.

Rather than hunt for another VCR, I sent the tape to my partner in crime, ItsJustDave, who had much better capturing equipment anyway. I finally get it in the mail and not long after, I get a file in my dropbox. The audio is great, the color's better, but to my disappointment, there is significant visual shearing. It's not so noticeable while the band is on stage, but when the titles show up, or when the credits roll, the slightly squiggly distortion was very distracting. It was kind of a let down, but that's analog, magnetic media for you.

There was something else this tape had though, something that never gets aired - anyone familiar with promo videos knows that there's typically a title card at the very beginning, with information about the video production company that either handled the duplication, or edited the tape together. This tape had such a title, and it wasn't from a shop in New York or Los Angeles - it was from New Orleans. Some quick Googling yielded the website of this company was still up - although it hadn't been updated in a while. More sleuthing found that the proprietor was still active in video editing forums. I don't know much about sports, but I think what I did next is analogous to a Hail Mary pass. I contacted the company and asked if they had a copy of the tape they had edited together 13 years ago.

And I got a response.

I doubt that I have it on anything but Beta SP or Digital Betacam if at all.
I no longer have either of these machines.

Shortening an already long story, I asked very formally and nicely if they would please check, and if they would be interested in loaning me the tape, as I would find someone who could do the conversion. The answer certainly caught me off guard - the tape was found, as was one marked "Big Day Out." Not long after, I got a box in the mail with two BetacamSP tapes, but the Hail Mary pass wasn't a touchdown yet. The shop I'd planned to go to had since closed, and I had to call around before I found a place in Philadelphia that could rip Beta SP. I dropped the tapes off, and a few days later, picked them up along with the hard drive I'd left for the ripped files.

Excitedly, I went home and opened the files in Vegas Pro 12, which should be able to handle pretty much anything, aaaaaand I got audio, but no video. The files were MOV files, but that shouldn't matter, right? But even Quicktime on my PC wouldn't play them. Thus begun an arduous re-education on the complicated hell that surrounds video codecs. I took the drive downstairs to my Mac Mini, and on there, Quicktime played the files, and they looked great, except everyone was blue. In the Big Day Out footage, the sky was kind of pink. I've been to Sydney, I know that's not right. Quicktime told me it was DVCPRO50 video, but given the odd colors, I figured I'd be 100% sure the mistake wasn't on my end before I went back and told the video shop they fucked up their cables. I installed trial versions of everything from Avid Media Composer to Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro X. Final Cut pro opened the audio, but not the video, just like Vegas. Premiere? Same thing. Avid was able to view the video and the audio, but even in Avid, everyone was all smurfed up. One of the tapes had NTSC color bars, so I took a screenshot of them and opened them up in Photoshop, where I confirmed that indeed, the red and blue channels had been switched. This is very easy to undo in Photoshop, and when you're working with analog video, you fix this by unplugging two RCA cables and flipping them. The closest approximation I could find for that in the digital domain involved opening the videos in Avid, rendering them to a format Premiere could read, and then using the Color Channel Mixer in Premiere (or maybe Aftereffects), and then rendering down from there. And every time I tried to export from Avid, my Mac Mini crashed hard.

So I took the tape back to a very embarrassed video shop. What's worse, once they ripped the video with the corrected colors, even they were not able to open the resulting file in anything they had other than VLC. Oh but I had spent many nights reading up on my problem, and so long as I knew the correct footage was there, the rest would somehow fall into place.

I tried several different free converters, but ultimately dropped money on a professional codec so that I could open the files unfettered in Sony Vegas, my weapon of choice. I liberally borrowed from the menus that nin.com was using at the time, and condensed the 24gb of standard definition interlaced video into a DVD and a couple of de-interlaced MP4s. I set them along an internet river that eventually empties out into The Pirate Bay, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor.

The moral of this story: If someone at The Record Label asks you if you want a free copy of something, just fucking take it.

Papagolash

02-10-2013, 01:30 AM

Fucking awesome! Very excited to download and watch. So many, many thanks for doing this.

barkhammer

02-10-2013, 01:36 AM

Thanks for getting this out there - much appreciated.

BTW - which is higher quality out of the DVD and MP4 files?

Ryan

02-10-2013, 01:42 AM

Levi spent a fuckload of time perfecting this and it looks amazing.

cheeseprocedure

02-10-2013, 01:52 AM

Holy shit! I am speechless... Thank you for sharing!

gorast

02-10-2013, 01:57 AM

I loved reading the backstory behind this. Incredible. Thank you.

DigitalChaos

02-10-2013, 02:09 AM

The backstory makes the results so much more awesome.

More proof that the NIN community can pull off some awesome shit even when the odds are against them.

DigitalChaos

02-10-2013, 02:18 AM

Some guy named ninhotline posted the videos on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkGIL_IRz2c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2q1vTbdFQQ

Comes with ads, restrictions to certain countries, and blocked mobile devices courtesy of UMG autodetection.

Freshcat

02-10-2013, 02:48 AM

This is amazing.
I remember all of this so fondly too; I taped the special when it aired on ABC in Australia as part of the rage program (Trent would go on to guest program in 2000) and was at the Big Day Out Melbourne show, on the barrier.
Big thanks to everyone involved, especially levi for his relentless pursuit.

ninjaw

02-10-2013, 02:49 AM

JessicaSarahS

02-10-2013, 03:21 AM

Thank you so much for this! It turned out great!

sheepdean

02-10-2013, 03:26 AM

Just a heads up: TPB is blocked in Europe, and the alt sites get taken down daily. Putting it onto kat.ph might be an idea.

Also, fucking awesome man :)

FULLMETAL

02-10-2013, 03:38 AM

Thank you for your patience and hard work on acquiring and sharing this footage! The MTV special is one of my favorite souvenirs from the v1.0 tour ('m only visible during the end of HLAH with my hands in the air starting to applaud the performance). I'm such a dork.

solarez

02-10-2013, 03:52 AM

Just a heads up: TPB is blocked in Europe, and the alt sites get taken down daily. Putting it onto kat.ph might be an idea.

Also, fucking awesome man :)

It’s only blocked in a few countries here in Europe. In Germany it all works fine. ;)

sheepdean

02-10-2013, 04:05 AM

You get TPB but you don't get half of youtube, a fair trade :P

ninjaw

02-10-2013, 04:15 AM

If france both TPB and youtube... omg BDO2000 is surely the most hilarious thing i never watched from nin !
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/772/bdo2000.jpg

solarez

02-10-2013, 04:55 AM

You get TPB but you don't get half of youtube, a fair trade :P That’s right. :P

FernandoDante

02-10-2013, 08:40 AM

AWESOME.

Should this be uplodaded to Dimeadozen and other places as well?

GibbonBlack

02-10-2013, 08:43 AM

for those in blocked countries

https://piratereverse.info/user/yourfutureenemy/

Space Suicide

02-10-2013, 08:45 AM

This absolutely rules.

Leviathant

02-10-2013, 10:22 AM

Thanks for getting this out there - much appreciated.

BTW - which is higher quality out of the DVD and MP4 files?

I think overall the MP4 is higher quality, but the DVD is perhaps a more authentic experience for a 2000-era release ;)

The MP4 version was deinterlaced with Yadif, and exported at two-pass variable bitrate with deblocking filter, although I don't remember what I'd set maximum and average to. I tested MP4 exports several times, adjusting the export parameters as I went, and kept bringing the size down until I started noticing artifacting, and then brought the bitrate back up. One thing the DVD has that the MP4 doesn't is uncompressed PCM audio. The other thing is fancy DVD menus, hehe.

Leviathant

02-10-2013, 10:30 AM

dvd (and mpeg2) is so much outdated, i'm not sur about mp4 files being 50% less bigger, maybe you should have try mkv lossless or even bluray sd, that exist, to be sure to output best quality available. Dont get me wrong : having AVC SD file, four time shorter than a divx movie, on a CD, is already amazing, but if i understand well values i get, SD bluray could be three time larger.

Well, at least you didn't ask for it in HD ;)

From the start, this whole exercise was about video quality. Footage from both of these concerts already exists out there, but the quality sucked. I happened across master-tape level quality copies, and I wanted to share these with the world. I spent several nights running exports at different bitrates and comparing the output, not only to the original betacam rip (24gb of DVCPRO50 video, btw) but to the other exports I had done, and was satisfied with the clarity and reproduction of the settings I used for the MP4 files that ended up in the release. Higher bitrates would yield diminishing returns - keep in mind that the Fragility special was shot on consumer-grade DV cameras. Low-light footage already suffers from that. There's a lot of the footage that isn't even in particularly good focus.

Twiggy

02-10-2013, 10:44 AM

This is amazing I went to the Melbourne gig at the showgrounds. Will have to download it.

Camille

02-10-2013, 11:07 AM

Fantastic!
I'm so grateful for this. Many thanks to all involved with this release.

Callahan

02-10-2013, 12:40 PM

If france both TPB and youtube... omg BDO2000 is surely the most hilarious thing i never watched from nin !

I couldn't help but to burst out laughing near the end of MOTP, when he goes to the crowd.

"ohhhhh my gooOOODdd!!! Treeeeennnt!"

Also, thanks for this @Leviathant (http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/member.php?u=1), as always, appreciate the effort and dedication!

DigitalChaos

02-10-2013, 01:14 PM

I couldn't help but to burst out laughing near the end of MOTP, when he goes to the crowd.

"ohhhhh my gooOOODdd!!! Treeeeennnt!"

Also, thanks for this @Leviathant (http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/member.php?u=1), as always, appreciate the effort and dedication!

There was so much fun stuff in the BDO video.
- The first time Robin's guitar pops to the front of the sound (6:16) it caught me off-guard. It gave me a quick flashback to one of those "metallic shreds" videos. I had it playing off to the side while working. I thought Leviathant was trolling me.
- Trent laughing through parts of Hurt
- I need a gif of Trent's "magic fingers" (ex at 1:33)

These 2 videos made my week! It's a great time to be a NIN fan!

Blackbookpress1984

02-10-2013, 01:20 PM

just saw this, super excited to get it! Gonna download the dvd and the mp3! yay!

LeviSnuts

02-10-2013, 01:34 PM

Big Day Out - Split Tracks - FLAC

http://bit.ly/Wbn2BH

Blackbookpress1984

02-10-2013, 01:35 PM

OH, And thanks!!

BRoswell

02-10-2013, 02:46 PM

Fantastic work. Thanks for sharing!

seasonsinthesky

02-10-2013, 03:47 PM

great work as always! total goldmine.

hilarious that Danny's guitar seems to be the pure DI signal without effects during "No, You Don't" and nobody tried fixing it after the fact. xD

k'sandra

02-10-2013, 04:13 PM

Thanks so much, Levi!

Deepvoid

02-10-2013, 04:17 PM

- The first time Robin's guitar pops to the front of the sound (6:16) it caught me off-guard. It gave me a quick flashback to one of those "metallic shreds" videos. I had it playing off to the side while working. I thought Leviathant was trolling me.

Hahaha! I had the Creed shreds video in mind. I thought he was playing with a banjo. My old 60w Peavy sounded better than him.

TheBang

02-10-2013, 04:26 PM

The moral of this story: If someone at The Record Label asks you if you want a free copy of something, just fucking take it.
Yeah, but then you would probably have been satisfied with that and never tracked down the Betacam SP tapes.

Camille

02-10-2013, 04:30 PM

The big day out footage is very good indeed. It's great to have these two videos in one quality package.

Thanks again.

May I ask if anyone will be making artwork to accompany this dvd?

TheBang

02-10-2013, 04:35 PM

Just a heads up: TPB is blocked in Europe, and the alt sites get taken down daily.
You don't really even need TPB. All you need is magnets, man:

[/URL][url=magnet:?xt=urn:btih:71f7c5d5e2023d9fde87e62e60 b919fa699bcce6&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+MP3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80]MP3 (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6ddeea2fc328303789d6a278896bd 78d8c0f0644&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+DVD&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)
FLAC (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:9dc42c6a0632bbfc09b18ce4d02f6 18522f14c43&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+FLAC&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)
DVD (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6ddeea2fc328303789d6a278896bd 78d8c0f0644&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+DVD&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)
MP4 (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:8dc5a73499991881f0decf38c3044 e9be4567f5a&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+MP4&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)

The MP4 version was deinterlaced with Yadif, and exported at two-pass variable bitrate with deblocking filter, although I don't remember what I'd set maximum and average to. I tested MP4 exports several times, adjusting the export parameters as I went, and kept bringing the size down until I started noticing artifacting, and then brought the bitrate back up.
I'm curious, what MP4 encoder did you use? Thanks.

And, of course, awesome job on this project, from start to finish.

Leviathant

02-10-2013, 04:48 PM

I'm curious, what MP4 encoder did you use? Thanks.

I exported the clips from (a proudly legitimate copy of) Sony Vegas Pro 12, which uses MainConcept AVC/AAC to encode their MP4s. It's the default choice for outputting Bluray compatible video, just dialed back a bit.

sheepdean

02-10-2013, 04:51 PM

You don't really even need TPB. All you need is magnets, man:

MP3 (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:71f7c5d5e2023d9fde87e62e60b91 9fa699bcce6&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+MP3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)
FLAC (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:9dc42c6a0632bbfc09b18ce4d02f6 18522f14c43&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+FLAC&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)
DVD (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6ddeea2fc328303789d6a278896bd 78d8c0f0644&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+DVD&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)
MP4 (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:8dc5a73499991881f0decf38c3044 e9be4567f5a&dn=Nine+Inch+Nails+-+Fragility+1.0+and+Big+Day+Out+2000+-+MP4&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80)

I'm curious, what MP4 encoder did you use? Thanks.

And, of course, awesome job on this project, from start to finish.
Oops. meant to like not facepalm, sorry lol

And I get that, but the entire site is blocked, so can't access the magnets to begin with :P

TheBang

02-10-2013, 05:04 PM

And I get that, but the entire site is blocked, so can't access the magnets to begin with :P
Which is why I reposted them in this thread, for those poor souls. :)

slave2thewage

02-10-2013, 05:09 PM

Oh god, the end of MotP. I am actually laughing my ass off. I <3 drunk Trent.

DigitalChaos

02-10-2013, 05:13 PM

Good call with reposting the magnets in this thread to get around all the censorship!

DigitalChaos

02-10-2013, 05:28 PM

Hahaha! I had the Creed shreds video in mind. I thought he was playing with a banjo. My old 60w Peavy sounded better than him.
it totally does sound like a banjo!
I'm glad I wasn't the only one. It probably doesn't help that the only NIN Shreds video I've seen was of MOTP http://vimeo.com/18220797

redshoewearer

02-10-2013, 06:03 PM

Thank you so much! This is amazing.

eversonpoe

02-10-2013, 09:09 PM

thanks so much! i'll keep seeding the MP4 for a while.

hollowsminion

02-10-2013, 10:23 PM

Thanks so much for the time and effort that went into this!

jaypayton

02-11-2013, 12:00 AM

Leviathant

02-11-2013, 12:38 AM

mtv DESTROYED that 1999 show by chopping all the songs in half (along with their awful camera work) for a second I was hoping this was the unedited version of that show, with the songs in their entirety.....nut its the same version with the chopped up songs....there must be the full show somewhere in mtvs vaults

That wasn't MTV, that was Trent Reznor - the show was designed to be a 30 minute broadcast. The awful camera work of which you speak was a combination of footage shot by fans as well as a professional crew. This is the full show from the vault. Think of it as the prequel to this (http://www.nincollector.com/archive/releases/halo_17/17_d_vhs_tvcablepromo.htm), which by no mere coincidence is also available from the link at the top of this thread.

Highly Psychological

02-11-2013, 12:50 AM

Was at one of the European shows this was filmed at in 1999, i think half of it is from Vienna the other half being London Brixton.
I remember seeing And All That Could have been DVD a few years later and being suprised how different the V2.0 show's were, i think the lighting and setup was significantly better during the U.S tour however the setlist plus films and images being projected during the Europe shows were much better and more powerful.
Remember there being all kinds of Experimental surgical procedure films or something being shown during the Great Below. Real dark. And La Mer was mindblowing. Remember being shocked at how stripped down the Astoria shows seemed few years later when the With Teeth tour hit town.

This is great i think a bootleg of the Brxiton show was circulating but was terrible terrible quality.

Also what the fuck is Trent on at the Big Day Out. Off his nut.

slave2thewage

02-11-2013, 01:29 AM

Actually, is there any full-length footage out there of the visual segment of Fragility 1.0?

Leviathant

02-11-2013, 01:41 AM

Actually, is there any full-length footage out there of the visual segment of Fragility 1.0?

I used to have a VHS bootleg of the first night of the Brixton shows (performance was not as good as the second night), but it wasn't a great shot, IIRC. I don't know if I have that tape anymore. Funny how you just assume lots of people must have sought that shit out and it would eventually float up to YouTube...

I'd love to find the full tape of the Paris show shot at this angle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVMOzW8PTvk).

TheBang

02-11-2013, 02:58 AM

Not strictly related to the topic of this thread, but since there are discussions about Fragility and promo tapes here, I figure, why not.

Anyway, my question is, has anyone seen or know anything about the existence of VHS promos for the Fragility 2.0 TV special? I looked on nincatalog and nincollector, and didn't see anything (maybe I wasn't looking in the right place).

Here are some title cards that came from them:

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r155/tabanger/NIN/DVDPlayerScreenSnapz001_zpsbfffd6b0.jpg
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r155/tabanger/NIN/DVDPlayerScreenSnapz002_zpsa684682f.jpg
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r155/tabanger/NIN/DVDPlayerScreenSnapz003_zps9f4b82a1.jpg

katara

02-11-2013, 05:59 AM

Trent is so fucking mashed in the Big Day Out concert. Great performance, though.

Many thanks for this!

ItsJustDave

02-11-2013, 06:19 AM

Not strictly related to the topic of this thread, but since there are discussions about Fragility and promo tapes here, I figure, why not.

Anyway, my question is, has anyone seen or know anything about the existence of VHS promos for the Fragility 2.0 TV special? I looked on nincatalog and nincollector, and didn't see anything (maybe I wasn't looking in the right place).

Here are some title cards that came from them:

I've never heard anything about them. These title cards are the first I've seen of them. Where did they come from? And how does the quality compare to what's on TPB?

sheepdean

02-11-2013, 06:38 AM

The quality on tpb won't be worse than even first generation VHS surely?

And I have the 2002 MTV2 thingy in .M4V if anyone cares for that, idk if it's still easily in circulation

ItsJustDave

02-11-2013, 07:49 AM

The quality on tpb won't be worse than even first generation VHS surely?

And I have the 2002 MTV2 thingy in .M4V if anyone cares for that, idk if it's still easily in circulation

The fragility 2.0 special (that those title cards were from) was aired on m2 back in 2000. What yfe has on TPB was sourced from a recording of what m2 aired. I know the lineage on that. The lineage of TheBang 's copy is unknown.

vivisection13

02-11-2013, 11:01 AM

This is too cool. Man I love these forums.

witte

02-11-2013, 11:08 AM

Big Day Out 2000The moments Trent makes contact with the fans on the border, I must admit, I'd to let a tear. Especially during 'even deeper'.
Charlie on the 'theremin' is awesome...

screwdriver

02-11-2013, 11:09 AM

great work as always! total goldmine.

hilarious that Danny's guitar seems to be the pure DI signal without effects during "No, You Don't" and nobody tried fixing it after the fact. xD

they probably needed some definition to go with the total fuzz of the other guys... its interesting, for sure

levi, as always you continue to amaze. thanks very much for doing this

jaypayton

02-11-2013, 12:20 PM

Trent said in an interview once that the crew recorded the last 20 shows of the fragility tour, and thats how AATCHB was compiled...One can only imagine what sits in Reznor's vaults...

october_midnight

02-11-2013, 12:35 PM

Seeing all the work you've done on this in the donor lounge thread has been awe inspiring. Congratulations and thank you so much for the work. NOW TO GO WATCH IT REPEATEDLY.

kercyx

02-11-2013, 01:04 PM

Trent said in an interview once that the crew recorded the last 20 shows of the fragility tour, and thats how AATCHB was compiled...One can only imagine what sits in Reznor's vaults...

I can imagine this + 2009 wave goodbye last shows !

jmtd

02-11-2013, 01:46 PM

Good stuff. The MP4 is the very first torrent I've put on my new Raspberry Pi-powered seedbox.

fillow

02-11-2013, 02:18 PM

skip niklas

02-11-2013, 02:39 PM

Hey! You made SPIN!

http://www.spin.com/articles/nine-inch-nails-fragile-live-video-1999-2000

JamesCmuse

02-11-2013, 05:11 PM

Get Down, Make Love from BDO is incredible! You are a brilliant man, I needed this!

EDIT: I just downloaded the MP3, I love you for the album art.

Scarlet Siren

02-11-2013, 06:42 PM

I can't thank you enough for determination and perseverance! I'm absolutely mind blown! Thank you SO much!

Frozen Beach

02-11-2013, 07:39 PM

I wonder how Trent feels about this, especially considering some embarrassing moments during BDO.

jessamineny

02-11-2013, 07:42 PM

The @nineinchnails account RT'd the hotline's tweet, so I'd say he thinks this is all dandy... or at the very least doesn't give a shit

gorast

02-11-2013, 08:04 PM

I wonder how Trent feels about this, especially considering some embarrassing moments during BDO.
did you mean: the entire thing?

I'm pretty sure he doesn't care. At most he probably thinks it's a cool thing for us to find, or maybe he read the backstory of it.

RJK

02-11-2013, 08:07 PM

I'm 99 percent sure it was Rob who retweeted it on the NIN account.

jessamineny

02-11-2013, 08:38 PM

Of course it was. But he wouldn't have done it if TR was cranky.

BrokenSpiral

02-11-2013, 11:35 PM

Man I wish I had a computer. Sounds awesome. Good work.

Bonedwarf

02-12-2013, 12:10 AM

Epic! Had some amazing news today, I come here and find this.

Fantastic day!

TheBang

02-12-2013, 02:29 AM

I've never heard anything about them. These title cards are the first I've seen of them. Where did they come from? And how does the quality compare to what's on TPB?
OK, well, now you guys know they're out there. Get to it! :D

Those screenshots came from a bootleg DVD I picked up in Japan a few years ago. I hadn't really looked at it very closely till now, but this story about the promo tapes inspired me to dig it out and take a closer look at it.

It's definitely a different source from the TV broadcast. The title cards and color bars pretty much confirm that the original source was a trio of promo video tapes (or maybe masters?), IMO. Also, notably, it doesn't have the MTV2 logo bug in the upper-right corner. I didn't do extensive additional comparisons, but I did note that it is still censored (for "fucks" and shit like that) like the broadcast version.

Unfortunately, the DVD copy is several generations removed from the master. The video and audio quality are noticeably worse than the yfe copy currently on TPB. The audio is also mono, like the yfe copy. Oh, I also noticed the yfe copy is missing the first 6 seconds of the program.

dlb

02-12-2013, 02:42 AM

Thanks a bunch for all the effort that went into this! I finally took the time two watch both and they are leaps and bounds better than the shit I got form Kazaa and the likes back in the day.

It is also nice to know that there might be some snippets from the show in Munich in there although I can not make them out. I'm still utterly pissed that I could not see NIN and the fragility tour as I prefer some of the early visuals over the fragility 2.0 legs (e.g. the great below).

I was also wondering what Trent might think of his stage persona from back in the day, but on the other hand he and the band delivered a pretty solid show and gave us (the fans) what we wanted unlike what some other coked-out former friend of his is torturing fans with now. :P

k258

02-12-2013, 10:50 AM

Leviathant

02-12-2013, 11:04 AM

Okay...wow. 2 songs into BDO, and I've got chills. To see a man so completely lose his shit in broad daylight is both thrilling and heart-breaking. The Trent I saw in recent years was intense but super-controlled. This Trent doesn't give a fuck. If there is any truth to the 2013 Fragile tour rumor, I can understand Trent's desire to reclaim the music of this era as a sober musician.

I had some conversations about this before releasing the tapes... at the time these shows happened, I feel like... I had no idea. I thought that was just part of his style of performing. With a decade of hindsight (and sober performances) it is painfully obvious how obliterated he is during that show, and I'm glad Antiquiet linked to the nin.com post with the quote about those shows (http://web.archive.org/web/20070514173115/http://www.nin.com/access/7_21_04/index.php):

i can't watch it at all. I was sick for most of the tour and I really don't think it was nine inch nails at its best - i was certainly not at my best

In fact, I actually was kind of hesitant about posting the Big Day Out stuff. In a way, it almost feels like airing dirty laundry. But it is what it was... and I'm happy he's gotten past that.

jaypayton

02-12-2013, 11:11 AM

DigitalChaos

02-12-2013, 11:39 AM

Considering how destroyed he was, he did a pretty damn good job. I know of very few people who can enunciate that well when that gone.

It makes me appreciate how far he has come since then.

ItsJustDave

02-12-2013, 11:50 AM

99 percent of NIN fans would argue that the Fragility tour was miles better than the WT/YZ and Wave Goodbye tours put together anyway, regardless that Trent was fucked up....He made that quote about not being able to watch the tour a 2 or 3 years after he got sober. he's been sober a decade now, I am sure it doesnt sicken him that much anymore.

99 percent of statistics referenced on the Internet are made up. If the recent tours have let you down, maybe it's time to walk away. I thought LITS was fucking brilliant. Also, there's no way we'd have ever seen Last or WITT live if he hadn't cleaned up. And before you dismiss my opinion as some n00b, understand that I've seen them live as early as '94.

Canuckle

02-12-2013, 12:25 PM

Sorry, can't stop laughing at that '99 percent' comment.

While the spontaneity and destruction may have calmed down in the past decade. I would argue that the instrumental precision, visual accompaniment and breadth of the NIN catalog has increased. In other words, as Trent matured, so did his stage and sound presence. I have and will continue to enjoy and appreciate that evolution (as well as seeing him healthy).

So I guess I'm the 1%.... dang.

Leviathant

02-12-2013, 12:28 PM

Yeah... I saw nine Fragility shows. It seemed pretty cool at the time, but things only got better when they started touring again in 2005. The LITS production was incredible. And then in the second-to-last show I attended, Nine Inch Nails performed The Downward Spiral in its entirety. The Fragility tour featured practically the same setlist every night, and an aesthetic that didn't really match the music that had been released. Everything they've done live since then has been so much more interesting, starting almost immediately, with the Still sessions.

It's funny, I remember standing in the field at Lollapalooza while NIN was performing, and the guy next to me says, "I hope they play more from With Teeth." It's easy to identify the album that came out when you became a fan as being the 'best' album or era. For many people, that's The Downward Spiral or The Fragile - but there are also a ton of people who excitedly joined up when With Teeth was released, and a whole slew of n00bs who came onboard with Year Zero & The Slip.

Canuckle

02-12-2013, 12:45 PM

It's funny, I remember standing in the field at Lollapalooza while NIN was performing, and the guy next to me says, "I hope they play more from With Teeth." It's easy to identify the album that came out when you became a fan as being the 'best' album or era. For many people, that's The Downward Spiral or The Fragile - but there are also a ton of people who excitedly joined up when With Teeth was released, and a whole slew of n00bs who came onboard with Year Zero & The Slip.

I have a strong suspicion this is the reason why many people hark back to the Fragility tour as the climax in NIN tours. They would argue that this was the penultimate before NIN lost its' 'edge'.

Henrie_Schnee

02-12-2013, 02:19 PM

ninjaw

02-12-2013, 02:20 PM

Hey come on I saw paris '94 and '99 and he was surely not like this, actually i'm really asking myself if he tried extasy or acids at BDO ? I mean, all that love, the touching, the smiles, i didn't know Trent was actually smiling (like this, anyway)... We already saw them in ackward moments, and this didn't looked like BDO ! I'm thinking of these 3 amazing old 95 bowie stuff previously unlocked http://twitter.yfrog.com/bf562oj
Also he really loved that show back then.

opal

02-12-2013, 02:46 PM

Ha ha, in the BDO video, the high-five at 18:05 is hilarious!!

Thanx for sharing this!!

NickL

02-12-2013, 03:40 PM

Ha ha, in the BDO video, the high-five at 18:05 is hilarious!!

Thanx for sharing this!!
LOL I never noticed that. That's hilarious. Btw, what's that on Trent's arm?

The most hilarious for me was this at the beginning of MOTP.
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7672/lgvh.gif

marodi

02-12-2013, 03:48 PM

LOL I never noticed that. That's hilarious. Btw, what's that on Trent's arm?

The most hilarious for me was this at the beginning of MOTP.
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7672/lgvh.gif

A still from that gif was Eatyourblud's avatar for so long that I cannot find it funny even if I wanted too.

As many, I'm very grateful for the BDO's footage but it mostly makes me sad seeing TR like this. There's nothing entertaining in watching someone trying to kill themselves with alcohol. But it is a part of NIN's history and it is what it is.

Did TR say that he doesn't even remember the Australian part of the tour?

butter_hole

02-12-2013, 05:45 PM

There's an interview out there with the BDO interview team (Jabba - Australia's dirty secret) and Trent seems pretty hungover / "flu-stricken"

Frozen Beach

02-12-2013, 06:02 PM

I would say Fragility tour was Trent at his best if he wasn't completely obliterated. I love chaotic performances, just not the drug/alcohol abuse that fuels them.

jaypayton

02-12-2013, 06:30 PM

ItsJustDave

02-12-2013, 06:53 PM

anyone who thinks 2005-2009 NIn shows are more energetic and insane than 1994 or 2000 era shows is fucking clueless...Im sorry but find one concert post sobriety Trent that can rank alongside Woodstock 94 lol

Says the guy who thinks Adrian Belew touring with NIN is a bad idea.

otnavuskire

02-12-2013, 07:26 PM

Im sorry but find one concert post sobriety Trent that can rank alongside Woodstock 94 lol

If you compare them in terms of how well the band actually played the music? Just about all post-sobriety shows outrank Woodstock. They sounded terrible there. Even Trent has admitted that.

danebraddy

02-12-2013, 07:31 PM

There's an interview out there with the BDO interview team (Jabba - Australia's dirty secret) and Trent seems pretty hungover / "flu-stricken"
I remember the interview and the flu quote.
It's hard not to draw comparisons to Manson who last week slurred and stumbled around onstage before passing out and being carried offstage. He also said he has the flu.

Maybe it's a go to excuse for people not being able to handle their "extra curricular" activities.
Well... that and the drummer being sick :P

gorast

02-12-2013, 07:52 PM

I'll start by saying I never got the opportunity to see NIN live, but from the concert footage I've watched (AATCHB, BYIT, AVOTT), the LITS tour seems to me like the pinnacle of NIN live, because of the intricacy of the visual aspect, the diversity and quality of the music, and Trent's level of control and sheer musical ability (compare Now I'm Nothing from '91 and '09). Watching the BDO footage was downright embarrassing at times.

If I had the opportunity to go back in time and see one NIN show, I would much rather watch the so-called "boring" sober Trent shows instead of watching him try to shove a microphone up Robin's ass.

DigitalChaos

02-12-2013, 09:08 PM

Another vote for sober Trent! I've been digesting the huge live recording collection for like 6 years now. I enjoy the performances from the last 10 years much more than the earlier ones. Even if you are comparing the music he created in the earlier years, they sound way better when performed by sober Trent. Maybe it's just because he has had more time to improve things, but I love the newer sound.

ninjaw

02-13-2013, 02:29 AM

I really was amazed by Paris 94, energy and setup ! maybe i was young and naive, but there was nothing like BDO this day, as you can see on the extracts on my youtube. Never saw something more intense and excellent.

fillow

02-13-2013, 02:33 AM

The grass was greener and the girls were younger

Canuckle

02-13-2013, 07:54 AM

anyone who thinks 2005-2009 NIn shows are more energetic and insane than 1994 or 2000 era shows is fucking clueless...Im sorry but find one concert post sobriety Trent that can rank alongside Woodstock 94 lol

No one is saying that, and that was not your original argument.

Anyways, I digress, Thanks Levi!

k258

02-13-2013, 08:27 AM

Jesus! I never really was a big fan of "Even Deeper", but this rendition blows a lot of my other favorite NIN live-records out of the water. Thank you so much!

As a side-observation: I became an active fan of NIN circa 2003, shortly after Still was released... so I'm more familiar with the sober/got-my-shit-together Treznor than the drunken mess he allegedly was during the haydays of the self-destruct and fragility-tours. So watching BDOs March of the Pigs was kinda sad. He was even to drunk to insult the poor pigs...

I felt the same about Even Deeper. The BDO Trent was deep in the shit he was singing about. The sense of desperation was so real. So gut-wrenching. And during MOTP, it was like he wanted the pigs to devour him, make him disappear. I am very glad I didn't discover NIN until just before With Teeth came out. I don't think I would have had the stomach for it.

That being said, as someone who experienced a couple of dozen NIN shows at or near the rail, I envy the amount of audience interaction the uninhibited Trent gave out. The Trent I stood at the feet of barely glanced down. Sometimes it felt like he wished we would disappear.

Conan The Barbarian

02-13-2013, 09:08 AM

So we made spin

http://m.spin.com/articles/nine-inch-nails-fragile-live-video-1999-2000

halo33

02-13-2013, 09:22 AM

I remember watching this special way back when, and what particularly stands out to me, were those little interludes of just Trent on piano creating the little fadeouts between segments. I rememeber thinking, "Wow..that is awesome. Trent by himself." And then Still came out shortly after.

And thus began my obsession with the idea of TR doing a solo show, stripped down, acoustic, whatever you want to call it. He's talked about it for years, and I guess the Bridge School Show was the closest he ever came. I would still love to see that.

marodi

02-13-2013, 11:47 AM

And thus began my obsession with the idea of TR doing a solo show, stripped down, acoustic, whatever you want to call it.

TRENT AND A PIANO TOUR! It will happen, I know it will.

And then, someone will record it on a Betacam and ten + years later, Leviathant will get his hands on the tapes and will transfer them on a more user friendly format and will post it on ETS.

Yeah.

Conan The Barbarian

02-13-2013, 11:49 AM

That would be no fun if it were that easy for him. lol. Almost like the headaches that man goes through is part of the adventure.

tucker973

02-14-2013, 11:24 AM

Thanks a million, this is a great find and a herculean effort of video codec-fuckery. This community never ceases to amaze me, and I had to sign back up for ETS just to say thanks.

Regarding the discussion of performances, it's amazing what time and perspective can do. I was in the pit at MSG in 2000 for that show when Manson showed up. To this day, in my memory, it was one of the rawest and most exhilarating shows I've ever seen. Looking back at the stuff Levi just salvaged, and jogging my memory with some of the AATCHB footage, it's actually kind of hard to watch. I mean, in the moment it's very cool and raw and chaotic. But looking at Trent on stage, barely even keeping it together, it's tough. Some people might get off on the chaos, I guess, but sober-Trent shows had such a different kind of intensity and focus on the performance.

MSG in '00 was landmark for a lot of reasons, and now we know that show almost fucking killed the guy. Looking back and comparing that to some of the amazing shows I've seen since, it just simply wasn't as good. Some of my top concert moments (from any band) are from Sober-NIN shows:

-Aaron North climbing the walls (literally) at the Electric Factory in '05 and Trent ready to straight-up murder the sound crew.
-House of Blues in '08, like having the band play in my living room. Trent messing up the Closer breakdown and joking "you guys know this part better than me"
-my crazy binge of shows in '06(?) that I ended in Long Island desperately trying to get rid of two extra tickets because everyone bailed, only to realize every single person already had tickets. OK, that wasn't related to the performance, but I met so many awesome fans at those shows.
-The entirety of the LITS tour, none of which I was able to make it to, but thanks to thisoneisonus I relish the blu-ray.

Long, rambling post coming to a close now. Thanks again for doing the enormous legwork for this footage. It's obviously inspired quite a bit of retrospective from all of us, and while I can understand the nostalgia for the Fragile-era shows, I agree with everyone (above all, Trent), that those shows were not his best.

cahernandez

02-14-2013, 11:45 AM

Now that we're talking about which live era was best, I'd say my favorite is Performance 2007: shows had a raw, chaotic, punk rock intensity (thanks to Aaron North and JOSH FREESE) with a sober Trent, and a minimal stage and lights set up, leading to more diverse setlists. The best from both worlds.

I can proudly say that I spent my first night ever in the southern hemisphere watching a NIN show in Melbourne, May 07. That's when Trent said "finally we got a good show. I was about to give up performing and take up gardening". I felt really jetlagged during the opener (Serena Maneesh, I arrived to Australia from Mexico that same morning) but somehow I woke up when NIN started playing. That's the most aggressive NIN I've seen (have seen shows from 05 to 09). Great memories.

halo33

02-14-2013, 01:22 PM

-my crazy binge of shows in '06(?) that I ended in Long Island desperately trying to get rid of two extra tickets because everyone bailed, only to realize every single person already had tickets. OK, that wasn't related to the performance, but I met so many awesome fans at those shows.

Did you happen to make it to our giant tailgate party BBQ? We had such a good time that day.

tucker973

02-14-2013, 01:28 PM

Did you happen to make it to our giant tailgate party BBQ? We had such a good time that day.

No, I wish I did! Things like that would be so much easier now with smartphones and mobile Internet. As it was, I wound up kind of wandering the lots looking for anyone who needed tickets and then just headed into the venue. There were several shows during that little stint where I wound up ultimately paying 2x or 3x due to friends bailing and finding nobody to take tickets. What can I say, NIN fans come to venues prepared. That was my first trip to Jones Beach, though. Very cool venue, and the only poster from that tour that I wound up buying.

http://images.cloud.worthpoint.com/wpimages/images/images1/1/0207/05/1_a2041a8729944d53a52b9e6d7969ec42.jpg

jaypayton

02-14-2013, 02:02 PM

slave2thewage

02-14-2013, 02:25 PM

cahernandez

02-14-2013, 02:26 PM

also bear in mind Trent's vocals were much stronger on the 94 and 2000 tours than post 05....He could scream his head off back then as opposed to later shows where he couldnt hit high notes or scream half as much....

Well, this is obvious, the vocal cords are a muscle as well. In a way, singers are like athletes...they cannot perform at their 100% past a certain point (think of Chris Cornell, Maynard James Keenan), that's the way our body works. With this being said, I really like how Trent's singing delivery has evolved as years go by, he adapted well. The singing is only one part of the equation, the performance of the other instruments should not be affected by age (in theory).

Leviathant

02-14-2013, 03:07 PM

Yeah, I generally prefer the guy who can more consistently sing on key over the guy screaming his head off.

tucker973

02-14-2013, 03:24 PM

In my previous ode to later era shows, I also neglected to mention finally seeing Last live. My head just about exploded in Holmdel in '09 when that first note hit.
Wish->Last might be one of the best openings of any show by any band I've ever seen. If not just for the sheer "holy fuck is this really happening" we experienced hearing Last. Anyone else at this show? Also, THANK YOU ROB SHERIDAN! I mean, watch this right after the new BDO footage. There's really no comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL7iGw5nm1k

TheBang

02-14-2013, 03:28 PM

There were several shows during that little stint where I wound up ultimately paying 2x or 3x due to friends bailing and finding nobody to take tickets.
That's what Craigslist is for! I've dumped 8 tickets on there, all for at least face value.

The only time I couldn't dump an extra ticket was when I was in Japan, and I ended up selling it to a scalper at way below face value. We had to communicate with hand signals, and he was a hard bargainer! ;)

voidnz

02-14-2013, 03:40 PM

That BDO video was amazing. Thanks so much for all the work that went into getting it. I like that era for what it was. Trent rocked hard even if he was pretty drunk.

tucker973

02-14-2013, 03:58 PM

That's what Craigslist is for! I've dumped 8 tickets on there, all for at least face value.

Yeah, totally, unfortunately my problem was that at all those shows I had friends who were supposed to show up and bailed last-minute. This was also pre-smartphone, so I couldn't exactly post them from the venue. Another time, I did get rid of tickets for face to another ETS member. I'm probably confusing the shows, but that might have been the time someone asked me to grab a poster for them from the show and mail it out. Yay, community! Anyway, stuff like that flat-out wouldn't happen anymore. I was at a show of another band I won't mention here with a buddy, and we needed to ditch a pair of tickets. We posted on the message board, and a guy showed up to our tailgate spot 15 minutes later. Easy as pie nowadays.

halo33

02-14-2013, 04:18 PM

Anyone else at this show?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL7iGw5nm1k
Yes. In fact I was ON the stage that night behind the light fixtures. That was pretty amazing.

eversonpoe

02-14-2013, 04:53 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL7iGw5nm1k

i've already made this observation in my head a thousand times, but watching this video really confirmed it for me...greg puciato (from dillinger escape plan) must have idolized trent in his youth. if you look at his swagger on stage, his body language, and even a lot of his vocal delivery, it's all inspired by trent.

tucker973

02-14-2013, 08:28 PM

Yes. In fact I was ON the stage that night behind the light fixtures. That was pretty amazing.

You lucky bastard. Man, I had taken a nice hiatus from reminiscing about shows and pining for a new tour. Curse you, Leviathant for inspiring all this reflection. Halo33, sounds like we've been to a lot of the same shows. Next time (because we all know there's a tour coming.... sometime), I'm totally finding other ETS people.

slave2thewage

02-14-2013, 08:33 PM

I'm still convinced that hearing Mr Self Destruct, Last and WITT back to back in 2007 is tough to beat.

Smugface.gif

Ryan

02-14-2013, 09:02 PM

I'm still convinced that hearing Mr Self Destruct, Last and WITT back to back in 2007 is tough to beat.

Smugface.gif

Why did he only play this a handful of times live? It comes across across live so well. Except how he sings the Queen/King part too early on in the song, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-a40EAvMfw

Radiovoyr

02-14-2013, 09:09 PM

Yeah, I really think WITT should have been a live staple from 99 on. I think it would be a way better way to close a show or finish up as an encore than almost anything else on in the catalog.

screwdriver

02-14-2013, 09:57 PM

Yes. In fact I was ON the stage that night behind the light fixtures. That was pretty amazing.

christ that is good. jesus I want the rest of the 2009 footage. this really puts the Fragility 1.0/ BDO footage in perspective... two totally different eras

icklekitty

02-15-2013, 02:40 AM

It's because WITT is very hard to perform. In Australia in 2007 they got some guy from the audience to help, and I remember an interview from the recording of that song where they showed how long it took to hit the notes (he IS screaming for a lot of it)

I'm still convinced that hearing Mr Self Destruct, Last and WITT back to back in 2007 is tough to beat.

Smugface.gif

That show was hands down some of the best sex I've ever had.

Why did he only play this a handful of times live? It comes across across live so well. Except how he sings the Queen/King part too early on in the song, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-a40EAvMfw

OH that's the exact show I was talking about. slave2thewage, schteph, and I were FRC and I believe we had a bit of an out of body experience when the build-up starts. Then about 10 seconds later the "dener-ner"s kicked in and the rest of the audience caught up. Mmmmm.

And then they played it again at the next show in Glasgow. *files nails*

NickL

02-15-2013, 05:05 AM

It's because WITT is very hard to perform. In Australia in 2007 they got some guy from the audience to help, and I remember an interview from the recording of that song where they showed how long it took to hit the notes (he IS screaming for a lot of it)

It's true. WITT is pretty hard to sing (if you ever tried, as a singer, to hit these notes) and to get it sound good without all the layers live.

Which interview was that?

icklekitty

02-15-2013, 05:47 AM

fortheloveofgod

02-15-2013, 06:45 AM

For WITT. I believe I remember the layers of guitars and vocals were hard to pull off in the live setting. I remember back on 07 hitting the F5 button and seeing the set list from Lisbon. Total WTF moment. Songs being played that we never imagined being played live before.

The BDO footage sends me back to Philly in 2000 seeing NIN for the first time. TR coming our of the smoke lights screaming the lyrics to Terrible Lie at me. Have been a fan since 92 with PHM. This experience was holy.

k258

02-15-2013, 09:33 AM

Thanks for WITT. I've never seen that. I do think it's a song that sounds great live, and Trent did pretty well with it, even though he appeared to be hanging on for dear life. It must have been out of his comfort zone, or we would have seen it in the US. Is there a reason why they couldn't lower it to make it more comfortable to sing?

botley

02-15-2013, 09:43 AM

They did. Live versions were performed one whole step down in pitch compared to the album.

witte

02-15-2013, 09:57 AM

The WITT version in Frankfurt 2007 was fine for me. The guitars sounded great ;)

Trains

02-15-2013, 10:25 AM

It's because WITT is very hard to perform. In Australia in 2007 they got some guy from the audience to help, and I remember an interview from the recording of that song where they showed how long it took to hit the notes (he IS screaming for a lot of it)

Man, I think I remember hearing about that somewhere. Is there footage anywhere of it? Can't find it on the Tube...

fillow

02-15-2013, 11:38 AM

^^^
it was at the spiral soundcheck, not the actual show, so i doubt there is a video

jessamineny

02-15-2013, 11:47 AM

There was video. I remember seeing it.

marodi

02-15-2013, 11:57 AM

I don't remember, i think I was about 13 at the time, but I remember it being the first time I saw that b&w image of Trent with headphones on, behind a microphone (that had one of those guards on it) in a studio.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd119/marodi511/trent038_zps3ea2f608.jpg

I've always associated that picture with WITT too.

fortheloveofgod

02-15-2013, 12:24 PM

I always thing of the video when TR is recording vocals in the dark/green into a mic. Could be the Wretched. Any idea where I could fine it?

jessamineny

02-15-2013, 12:49 PM

Is this what you're talking about? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0tzt4os5T4)

icklekitty

02-15-2013, 01:08 PM

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd119/marodi511/trent038_zps3ea2f608.jpg

I've always associated that picture with WITT too.

Yeah, that sort of thing, but the way it is in my head, the camera is round the left hand side.

bwary

02-15-2013, 01:24 PM

I always thing of the video when TR is recording vocals in the dark/green into a mic. Could be the Wretched. Any idea where I could fine it?
wish I had the nin.com page it came from archived... http://www.portraitofdecay.com/the_wretched.mov

jessamineny

02-15-2013, 01:40 PM

Your site is where I went looking for it first! :)

jaypayton

02-15-2013, 03:58 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLVdnA0iAg4

yea cuz 2007 shows have as much energy as TDS era shows....LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

ItsJustDave

02-15-2013, 04:38 PM

yea cuz 2007 shows have as much energy as TDS era shows....LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

http://www.timemachineforsale.com

tucker973

02-15-2013, 07:06 PM

yea cuz 2007 shows have as much energy as TDS era shows....LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

OK, I'll bite. Yeah, he nails the screams. I'll give you a point for that. But aside from the instrument-destroying (shittier instruments, by the way), what's really better? It doesn't sound particularly good. I mean, if all you want is to hear songs from Broken and the Selected Downward Spiral tracks, well, I guess I can't really argue with you. But I guess we differ on our opinions of what constitutes a good performance. So, while there's something to be said for the rawness of the earlier shows, which I have admitted to enjoy, as I've grown up I've ultimately preferred a better performed live show to a clusterfuck of chaos. Seems I've matured along the same lines as Trent's music and performances, I guess.

seasonsinthesky

02-16-2013, 12:53 PM

wish I had the nin.com page it came from archived... http://www.portraitofdecay.com/the_wretched.mov

that's actually "The Great Collapse." you can hear its beat from his headphones.

(which, i guess, gives credence to the idea that they pitched him up to sound female.)

bwary

02-16-2013, 11:22 PM

Your site is where I went looking for it first! :)
unfortunately, this era is the most incomplete of any. The media was well archived by many, but the actual site files such as the .swf ones weren't :( It's my favorite and actually what I really really wanted to have archived more than any other! I always imagine boxes full of old crappy HDDs collecting dust sitting in Rob's storage and would love to wade through the contents!

that's actually "The Great Collapse." you can hear its beat from his headphones.

(which, i guess, gives credence to the idea that they pitched him up to sound female.)

I don't rename files when I find them in the wild. I keep them titled the way I find them so I can keep track of the breadcrumb trails and references and such. The ONLY time I rename files is if they have been renamed by someone to begin with when they saved it from the internet... and then I come across it and I absolutely know the original file name... I will rename them back to the original. I've had this file for about six years and have not changed the title of it since the original file name is unknown to me.

seasonsinthesky

02-16-2013, 11:35 PM

I don't rename files when I find them in the wild. I keep them titled the way I find them so I can keep track of the breadcrumb trails and references and such. The ONLY time I rename files is if they have been renamed by someone to begin with when they saved it from the internet... and then I come across it and I absolutely know the original file name... I will rename them back to the original. I've had this file for about six years and have not changed the title of it since the original file name is unknown to me.

my comment was generalized beyond the title of the file — i've never seen it under any other names either!

jmtd

02-18-2013, 01:00 AM

Just to continue the off topicness, that 26/2/7 WITT was my second NIN gig IIRC. Fun times

BenAkenobi

02-23-2013, 12:40 AM

I don't know whether it's funny or not, but this DVD refuses to play (black frame without any sound or progress movement) on my semi-fresh installation of windows 7 (no 3rd party players/codecs at the moment except divx and winamp – neither of which play DVD-video), while any other DVD (both randomly picked from shelf or downloaded) plays just fine in WMP.

and yes, i checked torrent is complete already

Leviathant

02-23-2013, 01:30 AM

BenAkenobi

02-23-2013, 03:41 AM

ninjaw

02-23-2013, 01:25 PM

no VLC here (yeah i'm old-fashioned), but it worked in Powerdvd, as expected. had to reboot into windows xp for that.

+
I would make no question about the release of MP4, since there are tons of codecs and incompatibility is common thing, but MPEG2 DVD on the other hand is standard, and – in theory – should not be the subject to recommend "at the very least <insert obscure program name here>". i'm just curious, so please take no offense.

Videocds and mpeg1 are dead, Dvd and mpeg2 are dead, everything is now in mpeg4 (at least here in france). What you mean standard ? both standards had a LONG list of compatibility problems during their lives, starting with VideoCD2.0 chapters and hi def mpeg1 slideshows. I don't know where you heard these discs were magic and working all the time, oh by the way, Bluray got same common issues.

BenAkenobi

02-23-2013, 02:32 PM

ninjaw, i won't answer your remarks about the death of various formats, but DVD was invented 15 years ago to remedy exactly this – a LONG list of compatibility problems during their lives, starting with VideoCD2.0 chapters and hi def mpeg1 slideshows.
I worked a few years ago in video shop and had read a few books upon the subject. DVD was proven format that's indeed made to work out-of-the-box, not magic but unified medium where aside from NTSC/PAL and Region locks you aren't going to expect issues on the users' end. Well, perhaps with some freeware authoring tools, but certainly not with big name commercial software Leviathant used for this release. If anyone was offended by that, sorry. But again, DVD format is more foolproof these days than it was in 1998.

Leviathant

02-23-2013, 04:21 PM

I would make no question about the release of MP4, since there are tons of codecs and incompatibility is common thing, but MPEG2 DVD on the other hand is standard, and – in theory – should not be the subject to recommend "at the very least <insert obscure program name here>". i'm just curious, so please take no offense.

HOW DARE YOU! Hehe. No, thats a totally valid curiosity, BA.

The DVD image I created was built using Sony Vegas Pro 12, exporting using the MainConcept MPEG2 codec, and the DVD was authored with DVD Architect Pro 6. My copies of Vegas and DVD Architect are bought & paid for - so I'm not worried about any issues related to cracked software. I've authored many DVDs this way, and this is the first I've heard of an issue. The thing about DVDs is that they're meant to be played in DVD players. I can't really explain to you why Windows Media Player will play back some DVDs and not others without knowing more about your system (e.g. what codec packs you've installed, and even finding out active codecs is a pain in the ass)

I like to think that I am very well versed on this sort of thing, but even these days I get thrown a twist like "DVCPRO50 that doesn't play in anything but Avid". DVD playback's about as standard as it goes. When I run MediaInfo against the .VOB files I distributed, it tells me they're MPEG streams. I contend the problem is not in what I created, so much as what you're using to play it back with.

Additionally, I would argue that VLC is not obscure - millions of downloads, available on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, even as a Win8 metro app. Windows Media Player may have the installed-copies advantage, but only because it's installed by default with every copy of Windows. When in doubt, try VLC out.

Anyway, no offense taken by your question. As you can tell by my huge reply (and obviously from my first post in this thread) I don't mind explaining things :)

wizfan

03-01-2013, 08:55 PM

Can somebody please seed the FLAC torrent?

EDIT: Nevermind, I accidentally snatched the first FLAC torrent.

Reznor2112

03-28-2013, 06:41 PM

Is it weird to say that I absolutely love the way Robin's voice sounds on The Great Below when he sings "and all that could have been"?

ZootZap

03-29-2013, 03:35 PM

What a fucking good quality!! Thank you very much for this!!

ZootZap

03-29-2013, 03:59 PM

...and what a fascinating story behind it.

I know I'm late, but just downloaded, watched and now read your back story.

Miss.Selfdestruct

05-07-2013, 01:23 PM

Am still incredibly jealous of anyone that got to attend the Fragility tour and got to see WITT live. I was broke and in High School, tape recording any special on MTV that came of it, haha. Said footage has been lost since then, of course.

Thanks a ton Leviathant for making it available:D

SM Rollinger

05-10-2013, 06:35 PM

I got the mp4s off of PB last nite, and the audio is waaaaay out of sync with the video. Ive tried it on multiple devices too, so i know its not my hardware. Anybody else experence this issue?

(also, the video quality is awesome on BDO. one of the final true visceral NIN shows)

Pyract

05-10-2013, 11:05 PM

Am still incredibly jealous of anyone that got to attend the Fragility tour and got to see WITT live.

I thought the first time WITT was performed was the Performance 2007 tour? :confused: They definitely didn't play it Denver June 18 2000 when I was there.

icklekitty

05-11-2013, 08:37 AM

Yeah, WITT debuted in mid-February 2007 in Portugal. It was only played about 6 or 7 times in total (if we're counting the OSR performance and the Melbourne rehearsal)

The_Prowler

08-04-2013, 12:57 PM

I would love to see Trent play We're In This Together, but he probably won't. But let's be honest, here, I'm not going to have a single complaint over what he chooses to play at the show :D

EndlessLoveless

08-21-2013, 10:37 AM

WITT live never had that same....power, dare i say, as the studio version. It sounds great but, being a step lower and all, it just seems like its missing something. Still fucking awesome though.

The Big Day Out show is amazing. I know that its TR during a tough time, but this is one of my favs... maybe thats not cool.... i dont know i just love this show.

Dustin Burleson

09-21-2013, 05:11 PM

seven1963.org

scroll down to 2007 year zero era, and look for the 'surprise concert' link, download that video, they play WiTT during that performance.

its pretty clear why they never play it, and it has nothing to do with programming or instrumentation.

the vocal key for ' youuuuuuu and me, we're in this together nowwwww' and parts after that are super high, in fact they may be playing in a different key during that performance on the video im referencing.

you can tell immediately how trent has to sing it differently because he cannot reach those notes live.....

more curiously, im wondering how long those vocal takes took when recording the album...

Ryan

10-09-2013, 05:50 AM

more curiously, im wondering how long those vocal takes took when recording the album...

Well there's these -

http://www.ninwiki.com/images/e/e6/Fragile_diary_062599_WITT.jpg

http://www.ninwiki.com/images/f/fa/Fragile_diary_062999_WITT2.jpg

demo

12-09-2013, 06:07 AM

I thought the first time WITT was performed was the Performance 2007 tour? :confused: They definitely didn't play it Denver June 18 2000 when I was there.

when they recorded the music video, you could hear Trent singing the chorus in '99, at least ... ;)

nooneimportant

12-09-2013, 07:14 AM

when they recorded the music video, you could hear Trent singing the chorus in '99, at least ... ;)

I ssume he is lip synching in the video, which is what you do because they play the studio track during the filming, like most music videos. Maybe not though, I don't know.

They probably rehearsed it in a live setting dozens of times like they did The Perfect Drug and decided to just not go through with doing it live due to sound issues.

emptydesk

12-13-2013, 12:14 AM

trent is coked out of his fucking head at bdo

Ryan

12-13-2013, 12:17 AM

Random but lol. ^

emptydesk

12-13-2013, 12:46 AM

dude look at him during motp

benjmiller

08-13-2015, 10:29 PM

Hey everyone.

I know this thread is a few years old now but I just wanted to reopen things because all of the awesome torrents found here are virtually unseeded.

https://thepiratebay.vg/user/yourfutureenemy

I downloaded these files years ago, but I lost them on a bad drive.

Would any kind soul happen to still have the files available to seed.

Does anyone know of an another location to download these files?

I'm mostly interested in the NIN video files.

Thanks,

Ben

robmausser

02-09-2019, 10:25 PM

Hey Leviathant, do you still have the 26GB source material?

I've written some algorithms in AVISYNTH to use deep learning to convert older footage to 60fps 1080p footage.

However something like a compressed DVD wont work, you need the source footage.

Let me know and ill give you space to upload it to, and reshare the upscaled version with the community.

Cheers

Reznorection

02-09-2019, 10:41 PM

I love seeing NIN live now and will continue to see them on every tour they play. They sound great. Trent is great. One of my personal heroes. Nothing but positive things to say.

But I saw them on the Fragile tour, and what they do now isn't even close in terms of intangible magic or energy. The performances are strong now and the playing is comparable, but Trent was so much more connected with the material he was performing, was a stronger vocalist and more unique performer. There was a sense of complete commitment and manufactured chaos in those shows that was unique to this band and completely complemented the content of their music.

And THAT being said, the Fragile tour - from all impressions and video - was inferior in all those respects to TDS tour. I was ten during the TDS tour and saw them play Woodstock on TV. Even then, I knew that was the tour to have seen.

NIN has aged better than almost any band of their generation, IMO and has retained more of what made them special as a live act than any band I can think of. But precious few bands have performed their best live shows when the members were in their forties or fifties, and, while I'm very thankful for how good what we have is, I don't think NIN is the exception to that rule.

EDIT: Jesus, sorry to have responded to a seemingly ancillary part of this thread three years after the fact. I read through it and didn't take note of the dates!

FULLMETAL

03-21-2019, 05:46 PM

Stumbled across an alternate edit for HLAH that Director of Photography Matt Broadley uploaded to Vimeo seven months ago (they caught me singing at :18).

https://vimeo.com/284907083

It could be completely random that he updated his portfolio, or it could mean they're piecing together assets for a 20th anniversary release.

gorast

03-21-2019, 10:55 PM

Might be a little late for the 20th anniversary. ;)

An expanded 30th anniversary reissue would be pretty cool. Maybe something with reversible artwork, or just both the original and the reissue art represented? Might be a little too visually busy, though. And they didn't do anything for TDS's 20th after releasing the deluxe edition in 2004, so maybe he was just dumping an alternate cut he found on an old drive somewhere.

Jon

03-22-2019, 07:36 AM

It could be completely random that he updated his portfolio, or it could mean they're piecing together assets for a 20th anniversary release.

Whatever the case, I went ahead and saved it:

https://mega.nz/#!TnQECKhR!iGqnIqm3PYqeQZULm0HUneryqXcibVu3sZ38gI5 G_PU

Video is windowboxed at 1920x1080. Not sure if the original footage is 720x480 or 720x576, but neither of those were options. I instead chose the highest quality/bitrate.

paul_guyet

03-27-2019, 09:56 AM

ninlive

03-27-2019, 03:21 PM

Whatever the case, I went ahead and saved it:

Bless your beautiful soul.