2014.08.16 - Woodlands, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

[ekrekel]

The wife acquired 2 set lists. One from the NIN security guy, who was awesome enjoying the show singing along. He must love his job. Another from Trent's mic guy who works his ass off jumping on stage swapping mics/stands out nearly every song. We talked with him a bit before and after the show, apparently he's Trent's nephew working what's got to be the best summer job ever. Even though we had two of them, I still had to pry it out of my wife's hands to give it away. I saw who I guess was natalielair come up earlier in the show to talk to Trent's nephew was very excited about getting a drumstick or something and figured she'd appreciate the dupe. Sorry pwing47 if you were the one I didn't hand it to.

Front row bragging(sorry):I'd been around row 2-3 of GA areas in the past, crammed in like sardines. Those shows were fun too, but this was a totally different experience. You know you're close when...you've got to use panorama to get the whole band in the shot; the video camera guy knocks your $15 beer over onto your tour poster; or you have no idea what the rest of the crowd was doing. I felt like a human metronome having a one man spastic jam session in a garage with NIN. I might have turned around once during the show.

The poster turned out ok, fortunately a super awesome janitor guy hooked me up with a trash bag before the show after security confiscated my poster tube.

I had seen quite a few setlists and knew they were pretty much all the same, but avoided reading about Austin hoping for a surprise after they had 2-3 days off. I felt like they crammed pretty much everything I wanted into their 2/3rds set time. TDTWWA was #1 on the wish list, closely followed by Great Destroyer since I hadn't ever seen it live. Well worth the wait. Great show, if it's the last one I see for a while I've definitely got some memories saved up. I did see Rob at the end shooting a little video, hopefully that finds the light of day and I get another little memento from what may become my favorite NIN performance.

Some iPhone pics:





Crowd Pic during SG:


Mr and Mrs ekrekel

[Landshark]

I can't say enough good things about last night's show. It was my first time seeing DEP and they didn't disappoint. It was pretty funny to watch the venue security during Greg's antics - at one point he stood on top of a speaker stack and threw his mic stand into the seating area, and they just looked at each other like "What do we do? Do we touch it?" And later as he was running through the crowd he climbed up on top of a gate at the back of the seats and the security woman right by him reached up to pull him down but then stopped and looked around at the others confused.

Soundgarden blew me away. I haven't seen them live in a long time, but I think they sounded better last night than any time before. Didn't expect to hear "I Awake" so that was a nice surprise, then listening to Chris absolutely nail "Beyond The Wheel" was incredible. Right before that song he took off his shirt and all of a sudden it sounded like a New Kids concert and I was afraid the place was going to flood. At the end Kim and Ben stood in front of their amps playing with feedback for a long time until someone (I think it was the NIN tour manager) came out and told Kim to stop.

As for NIN, amazing. This production is mind-blowingly good to see in person - no Youtube videos or anything else do it justice, and it's so versatile they could really just continue to tour with it forever and wouldn't bother me at all. The song arrangements were also awesome and no complaints about the setlist. It was really cool to see Trent and Alessandro tremolo-strumming during TDTWWA, Kevin Shields style. Don't remember seeing that before but maybe wasn't paying enough attention at the other shows.

Anyway, all three bands, the crowd, the venue - everything was perfect last night. Couldn't have asked for more.

[ninlive]

Here is a sample of my recording. 3rd row, center. Surprised on the outcome of the tape. I thought for sure I was too close to get any sort of decent sound. Should be up on Tuesday or so.

Eraser - http://www.ninlive.com/samples/2014/20140816ryanj.mp3

[pwing47]

Crowd Pic during SG:

Haha, my left ear made it into this pic. To the right of whoever's arm is in front, w/ pink nails.

Anyway, good crowd

[magnolia]

Haha, my left ear made it into this pic. To the right of whoever's arm is in front, w/ pink nails.

Anyway, good crowd

Pretty sure that is me in lower left corner, looking down.

Did anyone else in the pit see that girl that came up about halfway through the set to the second row (when for some stupid reason, like, 6 people got up and left)? It was right in front of me, so I guess you would have been in front of her ekrekel. She was reeeeeeally into the music. It was actually very distracting. I moved up to the second row right by her just at the very end during Hurt, and she kept flailing her arms around. She waved them right in my face at one point and I almost turned and socked her. Pissed me off. But thought better of it. Would have been funny to see that in a recording of the show later, though, huh?

As I said earlier, I thought NIN's set for Houston was a lot better than Thursday night in Austin. Better crowd, better energy. Better venue, in my opinion. I had a blast. Was thrilled to hear Reptile and TDTWWA. I should have known I was sitting around a bunch of ETS people! The buddy I brought along was absolutely shocked by DEP, but then, I saw that coming. I thought they were awesome! Was happy that my buddy really enjoyed NIN, too, as he didn't know any of their music.

A few pics --


Took this next photo literally the second Trent was walking out on stage. I thought it would be a few more minutes, and right as I was taking the photo everyone started getting up and cheering.

[ekrekel]

Edit: Oh, also! Forgot to mention that the pit at this show was 1,000,000% better than the Vegas pit. There were a few statues/sitters tonight, but this pit felt like a PIT! It was hot, I got sweaty, chairs were getting pushed around a bit, people were rocking out.

I feared the seated pit was going to turn this into a Dave Matthews concert. Fortunately I was wrong. I felt like I was standing on a slip and slide, surprised I didn't fall over. Shirt was soaked the next morning.

Haha, my left ear made it into this pic. To the right of whoever's arm is in front, w/ pink nails.

Anyway, good crowd

Took two pictures, pretty cool aspect. I mistook natalieliar and pwing47 for a different group of people. Though the girl you describe sounds a lot like the one I gave our crumpled setlist to. I wouldn't have noticed her, too busy jumping around like an idiot.



2 More from Shawna's camera


Her best shot of the night, Love the Black/White look. Also seeing the mic cabling coiled up leading to Trent is very cool, particularly after interacting with the guy in charge of the mics/cabling. Trent doesn't move around a lot with the mic, but when he does it's impressive he doesn't get tangled up in the lights as much.

[pwing47]

I mistook natalieliar and pwing47 for a different group of people.

Ha, my bad, that wasn't my ear in the photo after all. Guess I was out of frame, just off to the left of the shot. Yeah, I think I mistook everyone for other folks, also.

Awesome pics, everyone! You too, @natalielair . But you just HAD to post that last one, didn't you? I've always wanted a "somewhat damaged" setlist :P

[magnolia]

But you just HAD to post that last one, didn't you? I've always wanted a "somewhat damaged" setlist :P

Haha, sorry, but yes I did have to! I was so excited - I've never gotten a set list, (or a drumstick or even a bloody pick!), for any show I've been to, ever. It was my birthday on Thursday at the Austin show, so I REALLY wanted one there, but I couldn't manage it - and I suppose meeting Robin that day was a pretty nice consolation. But I grinned like an idiot over the set list the whole way back to the car. Next time, pwing! : )