A-FUCKING-MEN

I will never stop being grateful that I had the opportunity to see NIN twice on the Wave Goodbye tour, including NIN|JA and Chicago night 2 at the Aragon. No matter what songs they played, and what songs they didn't it was an absolute gift and I absolutely enjoyed every second of both shows. Not one complaint. It completely baffles me that people are complaining and are so unsatisfied/ungrateful.

If you were a guy (or a dyke, I guess) - great. You could stare at her making sex faces and singing lyrics about dropping to her knees.

Otherwise, if you like pulling your teeth and poking your eyeballs out - it was great.

It's not weird at all if you check setlists every night NIN is onstage. I was checking 10 different people's twitter accounts the other night for it, and I actually provided sets in Chicago during those shows.

Speaking of Chicago, whoever said someone was from TX that was there and how there were probably more people from out of town than from Chicago there, you're correct. I'm from Dallas and flew to Chicago. For people who bitch and complain about how expensive it is to fly from the south to the north AND stay at a hotel near the venue...save your BS for someone dumb enough to listen. As soon as I heard about Chicago as one of the cities in these last US dates, I jumped right on it and got a direct flight for only $180 roundtrip. On top of that ETS provided me the best resources possible in hearing about the best place to stay at for cheap. Most were using priceline to stay at the Hyatt Regency on E Wacker right in front of the Chicago River for only $60 per night! Without assuming this trip would cost me an arm and a leg and little investigative work by just keeping up to date with posts here in ETS, this trip came easy to me who is usually always stretched thin on bills and rent. So when you bitch and moan about how it's not in your home town, STFU and do a little research.

I'm not even going to go into the bitching that went on with the ticketmaster presale...talk about laziness. As for people bitching about the setlists? Jesus...it's a gift just to see Trent perform at this caliber in this day in age. Remember how at the turn of the century he could have been dead at this point in time had he continued his vices? He's given us some amazing music during this decade, and it's only continuing. I've seen NIN 9 times and the 2 shows I saw in Chicago there were definitely some songs I had seen/heard live before but there were also some rare songs I NEVER would have thought I would hear live! Be more appreciative and get your head out of your ass

My (allegedly) final word on whining:

I'll give it up for people who were disappointed that they couldn't afford to attend the shows. That sucks. An acquaintance followed NIN/JA and I was irked that I couldn't take the time off of work because I'm not independently wealthy. That blows. It's also slightly upsetting that I had to dip into money I'd saved for surgery to go see the Terminal 5 show. But what are you going to do? Concert going is an expensive hobby. No matter what band, no matter where. I saw a favorite indie rock band a few weeks back, at a small venue, with little to no stage production, and it was still a $110 excursion, short-range travel included.

Like I said, I'll give it up for these people--because I'm usually one of them--but they need to complain to A) the federal government (for the shitty economy), B) their respective bosses (for not issuing a bigger paycheck), C) their parents (for not teaching proper money management skills), or D) their respective state lottery commission (for such lousy odds). Not at Nine Inch Nails for not touring long enough, close enough, cheap enough, &c.

As for the Ticketmaster/LiveNation presales, I'm guiltier than anyone for whining about these. Because I think that they were essentially fucked. The precautionary measures taken to ensure that tickets went to fans and not scalpers (which measures were a wonderful idea and I'm glad they were used) had the unfortunate side-effect of making it a lot more difficult, in some cases, for fans to get tickets. The presale sell-out was an unfortunate surprise; the website crashes ruined a lot of people's efforts; Ticketmaster has pretty much never done anything right, ever. Or anything for any concert-goers benefit--they're an awful entity and I'd love it if they went bankrupt and their CEO got raped on Pay-Per-View. And so on.

Plus, it has to be considered that the supply and demand issue for these tickets was insane. Just hardcore fans alone, it seems, could have packed every venue. Competition was fierce; a lot of people were bound to be let down. Thus, I think a lot of the bitching here is just sublimated disappointment. I was heartbroken that I couldn't see off Reznor & Co, who have meant so much to me over the years. And I desperately wanted a guilty party to demonize. And to be fair, the ticketing process was sort of guilty because, like I said, it was essentially fucked. So, I think whiners can be cut a little slack on this issue. Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my own behavior. The world will never know.

But as for the setlists: I've made no bones about my dislike of "The Hand That Feeds." I like it better than 95% of what's on commercial radio and less than any other song in the NIN catalogue. In an ideal world, would I have swapped the performance of "Hand" for any other NIN song? Probably. But was I able to 100% enjoy it when they played it? Absolutely. Was I disappointed to hear it? Only because I knew that meant the end of the show. I pumped my fist and screamed along. Because this is it. It's "Hand" and "Head" and "Hurt" or nothing, people. In about a year, you'll all be begging for one show, even if it's just "Discipline," "Closer," and "March of the Fuckheads."

What NIN fan, a few years back, would ever have thought that he or she would be seeing "Heresy," "I Do Not Want This," "Metal," "Last," "The Fragile," or "The Way Out Is Through" on a regular basis much less at all? Or the debut of "A Warm Place"? Or entire albums played front to back and Gary Numan on stage?

If any one of these shows had been interspersed in the With Teeth tour, people would have gone apeshit and said it was a fucking improbable miracle event. If any one of these songs had appeared on the Lights tour, people across the country would have seethed with envy. But now, suddenly, they're not good enough. They're rubbish, piffle.

Nope, no "Perfect Drug." No "And All That Could Have Been." No Broken front to back. Does that mean these have been complaint-worthy shows? No. Not even a little.

Obama hasn't gotten every one of us virtually free health care and a pay raise yet. Does that mean his presidency has been worthless?

I disagree with the ticketmaster "fucked" aspect. Usually I would agree with you 100% on them fucking people over in terms of quality and/or quantity. Yes, usually their website sucks ass and it has pissed me off many times in the past. I really had not used their shitty services for years until the Chicago shows came up. If anything I was more upset this time around with how livenation/nin.com handled their presales. But with 10% of the total concert tickets going to the nin.com presale pile, everyone knew they would sell out in a heartbeat (actually less than that). Even with getting off work and hour early and setting up multiple tabs in firefox thinking I was ready, I really had no chance in hell when the website crashed due to the traffic an hour earlier for the NYC presale. Needless to say I was pissed and had no hope for getting any tickets since the rest would be through ticketmaster only.

Once I heard ticketmaster would be doing a presale a week before the tentative general sale, this intrigued me enough to say "what the hell...might as well try it." After taking maybe a few seconds I acquired one of the passwords required and as worried as I was I ended up getting tickets to both nights in Chicago. I was curious a couple hours later to see if the presale had sold out/expired, and STILL there were tickets available. I've heard through some people there were tickets available up to even 4 hours! When I heard ticketmaster just went ahead and sold the rest of the tickets, it made sense. So if someone tries the nin.com presale, why not try the ticketmaster presale instead of waiting along with the majority to further your chances of getting fucked out of a ticket? That was basically my logic, and it baffels me as to why other die-hard fans would pass up that opportunity. So in this case, I applaud ticketmaster, mainly for their site not crashing.

I had no problem with ticketmaster presales for Terminal 5 shows at all and I think their paperless tickets system worked perfectly well. but I noticed a strange thing in my bank account statement - on August 26th they charged me 2X2,05 USD. not a big deal but what the hell is that? a price of their ugly wristbands?

upd: as noticed below it was actually a refund.

I had that too, but I'm pretty sure if you look again you'll notice it was a refund, not a charge.

oh yeah, you're right! so it's a refund for their ugly wristbands then :)

$66 was too evil :D
VVV

It must have something to do with the way they process it for the paperless system. When you initially placed your order through Ticketmaster, it said it was charging you $66. But then when you look at your statement, you see they actually charged $68.05. So I guess when they swipe the card upon entering, they refund $2.05 to bring it down to what they said they were charging initially.

Hee! I didn't mind the band at all, but the lead singer drove me a bit insane. Yes, you're a sex kitten. How nice for you. Everyone around me at that point looked pretty bored, but it was nice that people weren't talking or rude. People were quiet, clapped at the end, and let them do their thing.

yay for bitching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqD9QWeo8bk&fmt=18

just got echoplex pickup instructions emailed to me, seems like it's happening, unless the send out was automated

I envy any of you seeing Health and NIN the last 2 shows in LA...RI sucks. Too bad there were no Boston shows who am I kidding, I never would have been to get tickets without selling a kidney.

YEAH! GOING TO THE FONDA AFTER ALL WOOOOOOO!

hitler's reaction to the canceled show is linked on the main nin.com page. lmfao

Woo! Really happy for folks w/ Fonda tickets that it got rescheduled. That would seriously just suck beyond belief if it had been cancelled outright. Hope most folks are able to still make it. Ditto for the rescheduled Wiltern folks.

Yeah... I'm glad he saw that! Super funny.

Wow. Everyone who flew in for these shows is FUCKED.

I sort of just wish they canceled the Henry Fonda and kept it the same, permitting that Trent wasn't too ill for it.

We're sitting in an internet cafe right now trying to figure out what the hell we're going to do...



Ummmm... hahaha. You weren't around us. We had several of the WORST people shouting insults that the lead singer actually responded to (which didn't exactly make her out to look too good). Like:

"TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHESSS"
"YOUR HOTTTT"
"1 MORE SONG!"

Wow, we were literally about to leave Sacramento for the 6 hour trek to L.A. for tomorrow's Wiltern show. I'm glad I managed to make one final nin.com check before we left! Although it drastically alters plans, I cannot believe we will now be the official "last concert" on this tour. Wow!