It has taken a while to collect my thoughts on this very significant, important show but here it goes.
First of all, what a crazy venue. Felt like I was going into Six Flags, the grounds were huge and the amphitheatre itself was beautifully ornate and polished. Amazing sound too, we were in section 22 and I wasn’t sure if I’d need earplugs but boy was I glad I brought them. I’m not overly familiar with Nitzer Ebb besides a couple songs but I was looking forward to seeing them and they were a blast, a great set to dance through. Not the biggest Ministry fan but they certainly rocked very loud and kept me entertained. Like basically everyone I was hoping for Trent during Supernaut but it sounded tight and was still fun to see with Al (pretending to?) sing it.
Nine Inch Nails were amazing, as they have been at any of the now eighteen shows I am lucky enough to have seen. The lineup turned in a blistering performance. The NIN cultist in me was hoping for a deeper diving setlist (I’ve wanted to see Sunspots since before my first show in 2005 and I was hoping my sister, who got me into NIN and hadn’t been able to see them since Kings Theater night #1 in 2018, would get And All That Could Have Been) but I had anticipated that this would be the functional stand-in for a Rock Hall induction show and, in hindsight, knowing that, I should have had an inkling that the set would be less on the exotic side and more on the “Essential NIN” side. Probably very similar to what they would have played at the actual Rock Hall show if it had happened, with a few less visible songs like Heresy and The Big Come Down and some highlights from the Cold And Black And Infinite era tour (the two cuts each from Add Violence and Bad Witch, The Perfect Drug) thrown in. All great songs but definitely a more general overview of their material and considering the (seemingly correct) sense that the show was filmed (crossing fingers that it all gets released) I can understand them leaning in that direction.
Love how during Piggy Trent held the mic out to the crowd, he did that at night #1 in Philly too and it makes the song that much more cathartic and interactive. Heresy has absolutely never sounded better than with this lineup, Atticus makes all the synth elements just pop like they do on the album version and Robin and Alessandro’s vocals complement it perfectly. It sounds enormous. And I love how, even in a less obscure set, Trent can’t bring himself to exclude the gloriously hypnotic weirdness of The Lovers, which oddly enough along with The Frail was the closest thing to a slow, sad song in the whole set. Shit Mirror and God Break Down The Door continue to be excellent live and it was nice to see The Perfect Drug again this year. It’s wild how they have transformed a once elusive song into a perfectly realized live staple. And of course The Big Come Down always rips.
Obviously The Frail is where the set turned legendary, when the Eraser intro sounds started during it we knew shit was about to go down (a buddy who went with me has now seen The Frail twice but never The Wretched!). Watching all the former members appear on the video screen and come out to take their place on the stage (from where I was standing it was hard to even see the 2nd drum kit with Chris at first) as Eraser became more layered and intensified, culminating in Rich singing the lyrics (and damn well too), is certainly one of several NIN live moments from the grand finale of this set that I’ll never forget. We all know that the more guitars, the better the performance of Wish, so I doubt I’ll ever see a better fucking performance of that song in my life. It just exploded. Ditto for Sin - as someone reared on the And All That Could Have Been CD/DVD, it was so incredible having Charlie on theremin (!!!) during that song, probably the musical highlight of this reunion and Trent just nailed the vocals. Gave Up was good, the choruses had that sloppiness that its had on some of the shows this tour but with nine people on stage the chaos worked, everything else therein sounded terrific and it was just great seeing them all rock out.
Hey Man Nice Shot was the big surprise of the night for a number of reasons but you know what, it was awesome. Rocked hard as fuck and Rich sounded fantastic. Wonder if its appearance lends credence to the notion that Rich originally wrote it for NIN but disputed with Trent over songwriting credit. In any case, seeing Trent give Rich the spotlight knowing their history was very touching. Probably one of the best nights of Rich’s life. Really seeing all of those guys back and proudly playing in a unit with all the bad blood forgotten was very powerful. Major humility from Trent, a sense that he may be the heart of NIN but he owes a lot to the wonderful, talented friends he learned from and performed with. Head Like A Hole was inevitable with all those guys on stage and it was on fire. The whole reunion portion of the set I was struck by how cool it was to see Danny and Charlie back on stage with Robin (wild for someone like me who never saw Fragility), and how to my and everyone else’s delight Danny looked and acted EXACTLY THE SAME as he always has (did he find the Fountain of Youth?!), and how nutty it was that, with Chris and Rich tying it back to the very beginning, basically every era of NIN was represented in some way. Crazy. And then…it was over!
I thought it was a blindside when the band left the stage after Head Like A Hole and came right back on for Hurt at Philly night #2 this year. I was conditioned to expect more of an encore and just wasn’t ready to see the set so close to ending. Imagine my surprise when, after Head Like A Hole at the Blossom, the house lights came on without even an appearance from Hurt. Truly shocking. First NIN show of the eighteen I’ve now seen without an appearance from Hurt and while I’m not necessarily opposed, I was stunned to see it absent from the kind of set they seemed to be playing.
Not helping matters was the fact that I too was duped by that damn set schedule going around on the Discord that was exactly right RE Nitzer Ebb and Ministry’s set lengths but listed NIN as playing twenty minutes longer than they actually did (I’m glad I’m not the only one who get totally hoodwinked by that), so the lack of any encore threw me completely. Definitely left a little bummed being so caught off guard by the ending and sad it was over but I told myself that we’d see them again the next time they played and catch some of the rarer stuff we’d been dying to see that would have been a little more out of place in this set. Then I saw Trent’s message about VetsAid being the last show for this lineup and was Big Sad all of Sunday - feeling dejected at no NIN shows in the foreseeable future and that our chance to see some of those deep cuts was likely gone forever, and regretful we hadn’t seen one of the earlier shows this leg with a more obscure, adventurous setlist.
^ This was exactly me.Originally Posted by roolfdriht
But I realize that I can only feel that way because I am a very lucky, spoiled NIN fan, one fortunate enough to have seen over a dozen amazing shows (some legitimately historic), and I’m not going to let my obsessive fandom pursuits undermine what was a truly special and momentous event on Saturday, a performance that was appropriately as much about the men as the music. More than anything it has been a wake up call as to how important these people, this music, and these performances have become to a dork like me, but I can’t expect Trent and Nine Inch Nails will always be there to give me something to look forward to. He has a wife and five kids and life of his own outside of this to enjoy and whatever time of his we get from here on out is a gift. I won’t take that for granted.
But I won’t be at all upset if, a month and change from now, when the band and crew are all prepped and ready and fly out east for VetsAid, he feels too energized and motivated to play just the one short set there.
Anyway, if it's really the end of C&B&I with VetsAid, wow what an era. Some of the best shows Nine Inch Nails has ever done. We'll see what the future holds but we definitely have something special to remember.
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