Hearing that "Fashion" clip, damn they sound nice and energetic. So glad to have them back out on the road!
I had a feeling Every Day Is Exactly The Same would return considering the pandemic. The lyrics are pretty relatable.
First things I noticed after quickly checking some videos: new lighting color for TPD (it was green -> blue, now it's the other way around), and seems like Ally doesn't play that upright bass thing anymore on that song. Ilan singing Fashion with Trent from his drumkit.
Trent's looking much skinnier than the last time around. The Hulk-Trent era is over, people. Go see them now, they aren't getting younger.
Robin rocking his HOF hair, it looks like.
I'm very disappointed for the setlist.
1 song to represent the 5 last albums...
Last edited by blitzkrieg; 04-29-2022 at 02:41 AM.
Woah, Every Day is Exactly the Same! Awesome! Excited to see what other surprises they've got planned setlist wise for the next shows. It's so good to see the band back on stage!
Love that drawn out “I just don’t know… I don’t know… don’t know…” part. Is that exclusive to this live performance or has he done it that way previously?
Last edited by Erneuert; 04-29-2022 at 02:48 AM.
Excellent setlist. Good balance of nerdy deep cuts and hits for the casuals. Excited to see these subtle changes to the stage show like the light flooring. Considering I have at least 3 shows coming up on this tour, I am glad it's CB&I Part Deux. I thought there was a chance it could run closer to a greatest hits set even on the solo headline dates since most of these dates are booked around festival closer paydays.
That Fashion cover is awful, sticks out like the sorest of thumbs and I hope I never have to suffer through it. Fight me.
Seems like the merch & stage setup were kept as lean as possible in case of any Covid curveballs that could mess up/end the tour. That's how I read the approach to the show prints especially.
Really terrific setlist, though it is pretty weird to see a NIN set so leaning on the past (3 songs from 2007-onwards). But given how fluid the setlist were last tour, I'm expecting this to balance out. And hey it's almost funny that we got to the point where seeing TPD and AATCHB both on a setlist isn't... the craziest thing ever.
And it really shows how deep the catalogue has become.
Maybe it's just me, but the band (and Trent especially) definitely looked a bit rusty, from the videos so far. I hope it gets better, and I'm sure it felt much better in person.
Full show:
Any good first show in 4 years stage banter?
Downloaded the show last night, and I thought the band (especially Trent) sounded great! Didn't really any rust per se. Also, the more I look at that set list, I'd be happy with that as a first show back ... getting to hear And All That Could Have Been, this version of the Becoming, EDIETS and hearing TPD again would be great. I think we'll start to see more come in as the tour continues.
The 2018 tour started in a similar way kind of ... shit didn't start getting crazy until the tour picked up in the fall.
Truthfully, as fun as Hulk Trent was ... it really had an effect on his voice and it seemed like it was strained a lot more in 2007-2009. He just sounded deeper for most songs, and his voice always sounded beat up from pushing his vocal chords so much. His voice did sound more relaxed in 2013/2014, but I don't know ... I just always preferred a less "powerhouse Reznor" look, haha.
Since 2017, I feel like Trent's looked much better and his voice has as well.
I was wondering that too, that's kind of how those 2017 shows outside of the festivals felt.
You know, I wouldn't be against it ... but it's arrangement does have it sticking out from the rest of the catalog. Robin's guitar is SUPER noisy though in a good way, so I'd be down to hear a recording of this were the guitar is like obnoxiously mixed while keeping the groove. I don't know ... guess we'll see. I'd welcome their cover of Digital again too.
Fashion made me sob with joy when they did it during the Bowie tribute, so I'm ecstatic to see it in the live show. That said, it does bring up something that bugs me a bit.
NIN has basically always used canned audio for many of their tracks, most notably for things like the many samples in The Becoming, Reptile, etc. I generally think that's fine and pretty much necessary, as the alternative is either not having those samples in the live show or giving Atticus a whole lot more buttons to press.
BUT where it starts to bump for me is when it's canned backing vocals, specifically Lisa and Sharlotte in Less Than and now Mariqueen in Fashion (plus a few other times they've done it). When it's background noises, it fills out the song, but when it's backing vocals, it starts to feel a little like karaoke to me... does that make sense? An obvious exception would be I Can't Give Everything Away, which is of course intended to be a kind of virtual duet.
This isn't the "we have new music out" tour. This is the "we get to play shows again after 3.5 years of being indoors" tour, so they're going to focus on the hits plus whatever deep cuts they feel like pulling out. And I'd expect plenty of surprises along the way--this feels like C&B&I part 2, which likely means wildly rotating setlists from night to night.
The September shows might have some new stuff, but I'd manage your expectations for 2022 to be the year of getting back on their feet with 2023 to (hopefully) be the year of "here's a new album, huge tour, new live aesthetic, etc." We could get a surprise album before/around the September dates with an announcement of a big new tour starting in the fall, but either way, we shouldn't expect the currently announced shows to be anything other than them just getting back into the swing of things.
Last edited by Toadflax; 04-29-2022 at 01:43 PM.
Ilan is adding a layer, but MQ's vocals are definitely in there. You can hear it easily in each "fashion!" in the chorus.
To be fair, most of it is out of necessity. There are already five people on stage doing a lot of work, and NIN songs tend to have many, many layers of stuff going on. So it's either don't play a song at all, play it with backing tracks, or play a version without backing tracks which will likely sound incredibly thin and lacking to those of us who know the song well. It's kind of a lose-lose-lose situation, so I get why they have to do it. It's just specifically with vocals where I find it a bit distracting.
Hopefully we get MQ on stage for Fashion in future shows!
Last edited by Toadflax; 04-29-2022 at 11:59 AM.
He actually did, there's lightning above that transparent stage, that's probably the reason both Ilan and Alessandro are on floor level now. On Discord there's a photo by Kraw who shows it better.
I would agree if it was a case of them pretending they were doing something they actually wasn't doing, which wasn't the case here and Toadflax examples.
I would absolutely love to see Mariqueen do a few HTDA songs, as well as "Fashion" at some point during the tour. She's got an easy presence to her on stage and it's fun to watch. Still mad that I didn't catch HTDA on tour when that was still rolling.
The footage coming back from last night has me absolutely salivating for the Vegas show. September is toooo farrrrr awaaaaayyy.
Haven’t they been adding backup distorted vocals to the chorus of Gave Up for years or am I wrong?
It is crazy, I have now heard "The Perfect Drug" as many times as "Came Back Haunted."
Was so happy to hear Fashion. And finally, AATCHB, after missing Aragon night 2.
EDIT: I have full video of him talking about NIN's future recordings, film scores, etc...but I see full show is up so NVM. Loved last night.
Last edited by Zimbo; 04-29-2022 at 03:44 PM.