Torgboat wrote:This is sort of a strange picture, since no songs were played with a red strobe...
Someone on nin.com asked me about this picture, and I feel compelled to explain what I think it might be, as I'm surprised to even see it.
During production rehearsals we discovered that flickering a solid red frame quickly from one screen to the next when all three screens were down created a disorienting effect of alternating silhouettes of the band members. That led us to a cool gag for THTF where we filmed the band members performing in front of a white backdrop, and used that to create black silhouette videos of each guy playing the song. Then we sized them to be proportionate with the actual band members on the stage, and as the red flickered from screen to screen, occasionally it would have a band member on it. The result was that, if we used the fake silhouettes sparingly, you started to lose track of who was real and who wasn't, and it seemed like every once in a while there were a couple extra people on stage, and then there weren't.
Ultimately though, due to THTF's place in the set, everyone kind of agreed after playing through all the songs that having that gag in there was simply too much. We felt Only should be the visual climax of the show, and that another 3-screen song would be keeping the band behind the LED cage for too long. So it was scrapped after the first performance, and THTF went to a traditional light show - I'm pretty sure the private rehearsal show was the only time THTF was ever played with those visuals. Later in the tour we remembered the George Bush idea from the scrapped MTV performance, and decided to update it for THTF in the show.
We liked the silhouette idea and had always wanted to reintroduce it, but were never able to find the right place for it.