This was not only my first Nine Inch Nails concert, but my concert ever. The concert was on 10/31/1994 (Halloween) in Houston, TX and I was 13 years old. Just few days before the concert my mom had told me she had gotten me tickets to see the band and I was shocked, she was also a pretty big fan, but I don't think she knew what she had gotten herself into. The venue was at "The Summit" (now Lakewood Church) and I remember the walk to the arena so well, because it was just astonishing to me. First, everyone was dressed up for Halloween, so a lot of Crow costumes, painted faces, everyone dressed in black and girls dressed in gothic attire, a lot of Dr. Seuss type top cats and trenchcoats - I'd never seen anything like it before. There were also quite a few of protesters from various churches. Walking around the arena prior to getting the our seats, so many people wearing Marilyn Manson t-shirts. I remember thinking, who is Marilyn Manson? I didn't even know about the Jim Rose Circus before they went on stage. My mom and I found our seats and just people watched. It was pretty cool. Then Jim Rose came on stage and did just all the weird shit, I guess in today's standards it's not that crazy, but back then it was pretty incredible. Just these guys abusing themselves on stage, swinging their dick with insane amounts of weights on it. It was just something I could never even thought of ever seeing. Then Manson came on stage and it just sounded like noise, I can't say I was too impressed.

Next, was Nine Inch Nails...I can't say I remember every little detail about the setlist or every action or word that was taken place, but I do remember some key parts of it today. I know, the lights went dark, and then beginning of Mr. Self Destruct started to play, the pulsing sound - it was loud, fast and had a lot of energy - sounded terrible compared to the CD though, haha. It was a pretty good show thus far, but then things got crazy. Like I mentioned before, my Mom and I were sitting in seats about 3 rows up from general admission (so, pretty good seats), March of the Pigs starts, and when Trent Reznor screamed "March, push...crawl right up on your knees", everyone that was in rows, I don't know how far up..jumped out of their seats, rushed the security guards, knocked the barricade down and ran to the stage. The general admission was so jammed with bodies, bouncing all over the place, crowd surfing, it was a sight to see. I looked back at the at the rows of seats above us...my mom and I were the only one still in our seats. After that, I just remember bits and pieces of the show...I know tons of equipment was destroyed onstage, it seemed like as soon as a song was finished the guitar was smashed or the keyboards...it really seemed like after every single song. The next memorable moment was the video for Hurt, nearly all of us have seen it by now. The screen dropped down on the stage and just had these fantastic visuals and I remember seeing the animal rotting and the bird diving into the water, the angles of the video and the rapid of decay of an animal...it was so new to me, never had seen anything like it. It's so hard to express that now with Youtube where you can see everything, back then, for me it wasn't like that. So, it made a huge impression on me. The last thing I remember was Dead Souls playing, because I don't think I had heard the song before. I know I saw The Crow, but I guess the song didn't stick out that much to me when I saw the movie...I don't know. But during the concert, I was like what song is this? It's awesome. Near the end of the concert, so much freaking instruments were destroyed, it seemed like they went on for about 5-10 minutes just destroying stuff. I got a salt and tooth T-shirt with the NIN logo on the back. Funny though, I've seen the same shirt online for sale, but mine is different than online ones - The NIN logo is chopped up. Anyway, that's my experience.