NINJA tour report - Molson Ampitheatre, June 2, 2009
Venue: The Molson Ampitheatre, Toronto
Date: June 2, 2009
Performing: Street Sweeper Social Club, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction
The evening started off with a performance by Street Sweeper Social Club, a new project featuring Tom Morello and Boots Riley. It's been billed as a “supergroup”, which I guess means that Boots Riley is someone well-known within the hip-hop world, but I'm not familiar with him. When I had first heard that Morello was going to be the opening act of the evening, I had been hoping for some of his stellar Nightwatchman material, but this stuff was good too. Very Rage Against the Machine-esque, but different enough to not be derivative. The highlight of the set, though, was just standing there watching Tom Morello play guitar. He's an absolute maestro on the instrument in every sense of the word.
While still technically an opening act, up next for me came the main attraction - Nine Inch Nails. They played a ninety minute set, and I was just amazed at the amount of energy that they were able to pack into that performance. They started off in a raw and chaotic mood, with lead singer Trent Reznor knocking over a mic stand and keyboard during the second song of the set, and managed to build that up over the set while gaining more control over it. It increased to the point of being almost overwhelming by the end of the set, with high-energy tunes like Mr. Self-Destruct and Wish. Of course, as one of Nine Inch Nails' trademark musical elements has always been dichotomy, this energy was funneled into the final song of the night, Hurt, which is primarily a single sparse piano line accompanied by vocals. By this point the crowd was in full sing-along mode, which brought the set to an excellent close by creating a great feeling of communality amongst the audience.
Speaking of songs, I was prepared to be a little disappointed by the setlist. The night before the show, I had spent some time on nin.com looking at setlists from previous nights of the tour, and had been finding that a lot of the songs I had been looking forward to hearing weren't being featured. We ended up with a good set, though - it was by no means a “greatest hits” type of tour, but each album/EP release was represented (excepting the all-instrumental Ghosts experiment), and it was strong material taken from each album. I think that says something about the depth of the material that Trent's composed and produced over the years. If anything, it weighed a little heavily on older material, but a lot of it sounded tweaked, or changed - I would imagine, though, that you can't spend twenty years of your life playing a song like Terrible Lie without wanting to change it a bit from time to time. The tweaking of those songs (primarily the ones from the Pretty Hate Machine album) is no doubt partially also due to Trent's aging; no one has the same voice at 45 as they did at 25, and it's a good thing that he's changing the songs to account for that.
One last thing that really impressed me about the show was the crowd. Although they've definitely spent a long time in the musical mainstream, I think it would be fair to say that Nine Inch Nails' music has been made by and for those who fall outside the mainstream. That, combined with the longevity the band has shown, meant that there was a wider variety of people at the show than I would have expected. There were the expected goths, geeks, and metalheads, but also bikers, dreadlocked jam-band fans, soccer moms, kids, professional-office-worker types, guys in hockey jerseys, hipsters, and various others. A wider variety of people than you usually see at shows, but what really impressed me what was how nice everyone seemed. People were friendly, and courteous - I know that concerts generally create a bit of that feeling in people, because they're generally about groups of people gathering together to engage in a common ritual, but it really seemed like more than average on this chilly Tuesday night. This was my first Nine Inch Nails concert experience, but if they're all like this, I definitely hope it won't be my last.
The night ended with Jane's Addiction, but we didn't get to see the whole thing because my wife was tired and had a meeting for work early the next morning. What I saw, though, was enjoyable, but a bit of a let-down after the stellar Nine Inch Nails performance. I know that Trent had his reasons for making sure he opened for Jane's, and I totally respect that, but in the moment it felt weird. Most of the crowd stuck around, though, which was good. Perry Farrell, Jane's frontman, seemed especially entertaining from what I saw, like a cross between Gord Downie, a pixie, and a circus showman.
All in all, it was an amazing concert experience. There have been rumblings that this might be the last Nine Inch Nails tour, which would be unfortunate, but if it is, I'm glad that I at least got to be a part of it.
here.
Date: June 2, 2009
Performing: Street Sweeper Social Club, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction
The evening started off with a performance by Street Sweeper Social Club, a new project featuring Tom Morello and Boots Riley. It's been billed as a “supergroup”, which I guess means that Boots Riley is someone well-known within the hip-hop world, but I'm not familiar with him. When I had first heard that Morello was going to be the opening act of the evening, I had been hoping for some of his stellar Nightwatchman material, but this stuff was good too. Very Rage Against the Machine-esque, but different enough to not be derivative. The highlight of the set, though, was just standing there watching Tom Morello play guitar. He's an absolute maestro on the instrument in every sense of the word.
While still technically an opening act, up next for me came the main attraction - Nine Inch Nails. They played a ninety minute set, and I was just amazed at the amount of energy that they were able to pack into that performance. They started off in a raw and chaotic mood, with lead singer Trent Reznor knocking over a mic stand and keyboard during the second song of the set, and managed to build that up over the set while gaining more control over it. It increased to the point of being almost overwhelming by the end of the set, with high-energy tunes like Mr. Self-Destruct and Wish. Of course, as one of Nine Inch Nails' trademark musical elements has always been dichotomy, this energy was funneled into the final song of the night, Hurt, which is primarily a single sparse piano line accompanied by vocals. By this point the crowd was in full sing-along mode, which brought the set to an excellent close by creating a great feeling of communality amongst the audience.
Speaking of songs, I was prepared to be a little disappointed by the setlist. The night before the show, I had spent some time on nin.com looking at setlists from previous nights of the tour, and had been finding that a lot of the songs I had been looking forward to hearing weren't being featured. We ended up with a good set, though - it was by no means a “greatest hits” type of tour, but each album/EP release was represented (excepting the all-instrumental Ghosts experiment), and it was strong material taken from each album. I think that says something about the depth of the material that Trent's composed and produced over the years. If anything, it weighed a little heavily on older material, but a lot of it sounded tweaked, or changed - I would imagine, though, that you can't spend twenty years of your life playing a song like Terrible Lie without wanting to change it a bit from time to time. The tweaking of those songs (primarily the ones from the Pretty Hate Machine album) is no doubt partially also due to Trent's aging; no one has the same voice at 45 as they did at 25, and it's a good thing that he's changing the songs to account for that.
One last thing that really impressed me about the show was the crowd. Although they've definitely spent a long time in the musical mainstream, I think it would be fair to say that Nine Inch Nails' music has been made by and for those who fall outside the mainstream. That, combined with the longevity the band has shown, meant that there was a wider variety of people at the show than I would have expected. There were the expected goths, geeks, and metalheads, but also bikers, dreadlocked jam-band fans, soccer moms, kids, professional-office-worker types, guys in hockey jerseys, hipsters, and various others. A wider variety of people than you usually see at shows, but what really impressed me what was how nice everyone seemed. People were friendly, and courteous - I know that concerts generally create a bit of that feeling in people, because they're generally about groups of people gathering together to engage in a common ritual, but it really seemed like more than average on this chilly Tuesday night. This was my first Nine Inch Nails concert experience, but if they're all like this, I definitely hope it won't be my last.
The night ended with Jane's Addiction, but we didn't get to see the whole thing because my wife was tired and had a meeting for work early the next morning. What I saw, though, was enjoyable, but a bit of a let-down after the stellar Nine Inch Nails performance. I know that Trent had his reasons for making sure he opened for Jane's, and I totally respect that, but in the moment it felt weird. Most of the crowd stuck around, though, which was good. Perry Farrell, Jane's frontman, seemed especially entertaining from what I saw, like a cross between Gord Downie, a pixie, and a circus showman.
All in all, it was an amazing concert experience. There have been rumblings that this might be the last Nine Inch Nails tour, which would be unfortunate, but if it is, I'm glad that I at least got to be a part of it.
here.