Nine Inch Nails Timidly Wave Goodbye From The PNC Arts Center Holmdel NJ – 06-06-2009

by Jeff Boule in Celebrity News, Concert Reviews, Editorials, Industry News, Musician Reviews, News, Reviews, Song Reviews

So I here I am in the New Jersey dust bowl sitting through Street Sweeper Social Club featuring Tom Morello.  While he is an innovative guitarist, I got nothing for him, I got nothing for Rage Against The Machine.  I am here for Nine Inch Nails.  If this is truly going to be one of those farewell tours that precede another farewell tour later on, I will be pissed.  Street Sweeper Social Club is a mutation of “Kid Rock meets Poser Metal”.  The PNC dust bowl is filling up and the crowd is respectably mixed in demographic.  Morello, the guitar player for SSSC, tells the crowd to stand up for their last song (thankfully) but I adhere to no such demands from any front person.

Jane’s Addiction will be out after NIN.  I will not be covering Jane’s Addiction as I just don’t care.  Perry Ferrel has been so temperamental, forming, dissolving, re-forming Jane’s Addiction that I lost interest.  My companions want to stay to see Jane’s Addiction.  I am in the minority.

How I suffer…

SSSC (Social Club, yeah right) finishes and the stage is disassembled, and some innocuous music plays over the PA while we wait for swap over.

A thunderous noise starts the show, that noise being “999,999″ from The Slip.  This is Nine Inch’s usual announcement for those interested to get to their seats.  Once settled, we are treated to “Pinion” from the Broken/Fixed EPs.  But only after a few tremolo release bends, it isn’t long before “Wish” starts, also from this set.  Bright strobes and fog illuminate the band.

This is a very tight “Wish”, but this is a fresh NIN.  Let’s talk about this version of NIN.  The only recognizable member besides Reznor, is Robin Finck.  We see a no-name bass player, and a longhaired, dreadlocked drummer, but we do not see ANY keyboardist.  Furthermore, Reznor never introduced the rhythm section of the band.  So these guys were new on the session scene and Reznor picked them up for little over scale I bet.  Oh, so that’s how this farewell tour is going to be, on the cheap!  It was a wonder why they would run out of shirts at the merchandise stands before the band took the stage.

Trent & Co. In Full Performance Mode, Almost. (Photo by Amanda Collins)

The energy is usually up at NIN shows, the next tune “Last” thumps along concluding our Broken/Fixed medley.  As usual the PA is taxed beyond capacity.  All the changes were smooth, this is a well-rehearsed band.  Of course, when you are playing alongside MIDI, you have to be on point.  One last “Blow me away” and we are right into “Discipline” from the final disc for Interscope, The Slip.

Of course, another usual at Nine Inch shows, I am harassed by the uncouth.  Two losers sitting behind me complain about how we are standing up in front of them.  If you don’t like concert conditions, don’t go to them.  I, too prefer to sit.  I am a damaged road warrior.  To the lower back specifically.  So when I have to stand at places like the PNC Dust Center, and hold my writing pad in one hand and scrawl with the other, I don’t need any Jocko Homos (thanks Mark, Gerald) giving me ‘tude because I have to stand to see what is going on because everyone in front of me and my five-foot, two inch best thing to ever happen to me (who has been assisting in these blogs by capturing the images, for this show we have enlisted an additional photographer, Amanda, mad props to her) who usually has the tallest jerk in the venue STAND IN FRONT OF HER!!!

People.

Reznor Displays Facially How Many NIN Fans Feel About The News Of Their Disbandment. (Photo by Lynn Vala)

Reznor’s voice is up to usual par this late in the tour.  Who ever they got to program the midi isn’t exactly Alessandro Cortini.  When this acceptable version ends, we are met with “March Of The Pigs” from the Ep of the same name.  Odd, but during the break for the piano and vocal break, the drummer climbs off the drum riser and plays the piano!  Odd noises end this rager.

Vague sequencer notes intro “Reptile” also from …Pigs, and a particularly rumbly version, subsonic bass notes shake the dust bowl.  It is built in swampland…

Reznor's Impersonation Of Swamp Thing. (Photo By Amanda Collins)

Having covered several NIN shows, I am starting to see patterns and there is little rearranging or experimenting.  Could be one of the reasons Reznor is bored with Nine Inch Nails.

“Meet Your Master”  from Year Zero is next and it has me wondering how four people can get it sounding so big.  No live keyboards, that’s right.  I guess most of the extra tracks were midied.  I see the bass player and drummer bouncing in time to the keyboard rhythm.  Most likely to follow it together in meter.

Attempting To Appear 'Into It', Reznor Tries Not To Let His Malaise Show. (Photo By Lynn Vala)

Thundering drums reveal the pulse-speeding “Gave Up” from the Broken/Fixed set again.  Robin Finck takes over lead vocal on the section “It took you, to make me realize…” strobes flash out at the end.  Makes me wonder if they were trying to hypnotize the audience into liking the performance.  Didn’t even work.  The song was tight, breaks were tight, but it just sounded so, tremendously, not there.

Trent Angsts It Up While Robin Finck Delivers Vocals (Photo By Amanda Collins)

Reznor plays solo piano for the intro to The Fragile’s “La Mer”.  But it sounds like one of his samples is out of tune.  The drummer plays with a left hand ride style on the high hat like Mike Urbano of Bourgeois Tagg.  The bass player used an upright bass for “La Mer”, and it is an unhurried tune.  It felt rushed.  This song has that distinct timing trick of being labeled ‘unhurried’.  This is a timing element that is not easy to develop.  I think I am lucky in that I didn’t go through too much to incorporate that style of feel into my arsenal.  Before you go saying “Oh anybody should be able to play in an unhurried tempo…” I stand before you today to say I am living witness to TWO separate players who could NEVER stay in an unhurried tempo.  The nameless rhythm section of Nine Inch Nails better be able to do it, that being tantamount for this track at least.

At this point Reznor announces that this is the last tour and thanks the crowd and begins to reminisce.  So I guess you can insert your own senior citizen’s joke at Reznor’s expense right here.  You know, senile old Grampa telling the same old stories of how he walked to school, 15 miles in the snow, one way, uphill, both ways…

Reznor Raises A Hand Either As A Musical Cue Or He Really Did, Just Give Up. (Photo By Amanda Collins)

A sweat soaked Reznor launches into “Non-Entity” from the promotional item for the tour, what was so tongue-in-cheekly called the “NINJA Tour Sampler. NINJA being the result of the ackronyms for the the top two bands on the bill, Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction.  Die hard fans will know how to get a hold of this.  A slower tempo, the fullness remaining, at times it is too loud to tell who is playing what and if the midi is even playing.

They bleed this into “The Way Out Is Through”, another track from The Fragile.  It is about now that I have taken notice of the fact that this  is perhaps the most hollow Nine Inch Nails show I have ever seen, read about, heard about, or ever had detailed to me in any form or media or source.  Apart from a great delay on the last words of the line, it has hit me like a train: Reznor just doesn’t care.  This was his baby, his creation, I had respect for Reznor, he is one of the most important artists to surface out of the late 80’s.  But this is ridiculous.

The afore mentioned delay segues into Downward Spiral’s “Mr. Self Destruct” which presents itself as a full serious version.  The dynamics are played to full effect as the entire level drops for the chorus break.  A tight ending for a power trio.

As Reznor Bows Down Before The Monitor He Serves, Finck Goosesteps To The Beat. (Photo By Lynn Vala).

Next we are assaulted by a very full version of “1,000,000″ to the start of a two-for from The Slip.  A bit of a dip into the second verse.  May have been a forecast of things to come as they ran out of gas at the end.

“Echoplex” is part two from The Slip and the dependence on Midi as far as how the drum line is programmed is beyond what they call, human feel.  With drum programming there is the very real danger of ending up with what we call ‘The Eight-Armed Drummer’.  In my old studio, I had two drum machines for use.  My personal Roland TR-626 (tight machine) and my bandmate Marc’s Alesis HR16 (very humanistic).  It was work to make sure the Roland played the tight drum lines and the Alesis with a quantize trigger that would give you an instant roll by pressing and holding the pad for the duration of the roll when ever I wanted a fill or roll.

Real drums in “Echoplex” start at the second verse.  But in the crush of midi drums, real drums, etc., all the other instruments overpower the backing vocals.  A decent version, overcrowding not withstanding.  Missing is the showmanship of last tour when Josh Freese would program the drum screen with some flair, some inventiveness.  Gone was that element completely.  You see, a screen was down in front of the stage for a portion of the show during the original Lights In The Sky Tour (you can check the archive, I am sure I reviewed a couple of shows, specifically one for that tour).  When it came time to do “Echoplex”, Freese would come out in front of the screen and a series of squares lit up on the screen (arranged in pairs of rows, sixteen I believe).  He would touch the screen inside the different squares and this act equated to programming a drum machine live.  The squares would be lit by a tempo sweep light.  This was a thin line that ran across the squares and that signaled to Freese when the measure was beginning so he could program the intricate drum machine live to coincide with the pre-programmed instrument parts that were already stored and waiting for these beats to be installed.  The light pads on the screen were touch sensitive, so he was able to emphasize what he wanted and accent, induce a feel, he could and did.

More Midi carries most of “Survivalism” which was distributed in an interesting way.  At NIN shows, people were finding these USB computer stick drives all over the place, and when inserted into a machine, they spouted a NIN propaganda campaign and this song  For this live version, the instruments fill this song as well.  Reznor leads the crowd through a militant cheer.  Some nifty effects on the vocals.  Delaying the line, he waits for the delay and sings opposite of delayed vocal lines.

Up now is “Only”, a very groove-heavy track from With Teeth for NIN.  This song always delights and always ends with an overblown ending.  This version at PNC Dust Bowl is no exception.

A Corpulent Reznor Belts It Out. (Photo By Lynn Vala)

I am noticing as I type this review, many of the song descriptions are brief.  That pretty much says a lot for the songs.  Nondescript.

“Hand That Feeds” from With Teeth continues Midi madness.  This version is stock for the most part.  They have done this song for a couple of tours so it should be pretty much a done deal.  But for the new guys, maybe not so much.  At one point before a backing vocal cue, the bass player found himself across the stage and had to do a runner to get back to the mic in time.

Reznor Manning The Mic, 'Selling It' To The Crowd. (Photo By Amanda Collins)

Naturally “Head Like A Hole” from Pretty Hate Machine was highly reliant on the Midi.  But this time it is tired.  He must be done with this song, having played it over and over…  During the break “Bow down before the one you serve…” none of the guitarists were playing.  Sounding so hollow.

This ended their night.

The usual “Hurt” from The Downward Spiral is offered as a brief encore.  A stark beginning, it will build.  Is it any more poignant that the crowd is singing and going nuts over this last live NIN song?

Reznor Counts The Minutes Left To The Show. (Photo By Lynn Vala)

There was a special air about the show.  But I think it was only the contact high from all the marijuana smoke in the air from being rather openly consumed.

Another conspicuous concept is the fact that Nine Inch’s entire Interscope catalog was more or less forsaken save for the necessary songs (”Hurt”, stuff from The Slip).  It is obvious that Reznor has no intention of promoting anything Interscope.

So this is it, out with a midi-enabled whimper.  No way?  No explosions?  No suicides on stage?  He calls himself a Goth…  Goth people don’t quit in the middle of things, like a wildly successful band like Nine Inch Nails.

Or maybe they do…

I am gearing up for the hate mail.  Dedicated fans will be dipping the poison darts right about now.  But before you go shopping for the gift that keeps on giving (in this case, my receipt of an envelope full of Anthrax, and not the band) I want to present my best thing to ever happen to me and her point of view on all this.  She is a long time fan.  She knew him when, and was friends with people he went to High School with.

As Mike.

My interest in Nine Inch Nails started with the band hitting the mainstream with tracks like “Head Like A Hole” from the first big scale release Pretty Hate Machine.  Her interest began previous to that and was the astute one who pointed out to me that Reznor appeared in the movie Light Of Day with Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox.  He played a rival band’s keyboard player, doing a Flock Of Nails thing.

All of this amounts to is: What is her impression?  What does the die-hard-core fan think?  Her response:  “He’s tired, he’s old, and evacuating New Orleans several times has taken it’s toll on his creative process.”

A die-hard-core Nine Inch Nails fan before Nine Inch Nails was Nine Inch Nails.  From his humble beginnings gigging as a keyboardist for a pseudo Flock Of Seagulls-type band in the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati areas, to the spectacle we witnessed that fateful day in June.  If you get to his website you will see that he has more of these Wave Goodbye Tour dates in and around the New York City area.  The very best I can recommend, or my best thing to ever happen to me (the resident authority on Nine Inch Nails and most things Reznor) can say is, attend this tour at your own risk.

Coming up we have a new Tori Amos disc Abnormally Attracted To Sin.  Everyone’s favorite side-saddle chanteuse is spinning her webs, calling out her girls to come play.  I will be reviewing her album and in August my best thing to ever happen to me and I will be covering her show in Red Bank.  We’ll be inserting some more of those reviews that were lost to time, and we’ll be sticking the Tony Levin album Stick Men in there somewhere as well.

As always, if you need help finding something, give the good folks at PREX a call and see if they either have it in stock or can get it for you.  Until next time, HOT SOUP!