No casual fans were in attendance.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you couldn’t get a ticket.\u00c2\u00a0 And why would you want to?<\/p>\n
At the juncture of art and commerce, for one slim moment in the nineties, an act playing less than mainstream music could make a video so riveting, enhancing the underlying sounds, that MTV could air it and a career could be jettisoned from nowhere into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n
This was prior to Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger.\u00c2\u00a0 There were pockets of fans, but MTV blew Nine Inch Nails up. And then Trent and his roving band of backup musicians blew people’s minds.\u00c2\u00a0 Most notably at a Woodstock reunion, where turf was thrown and there was a palpable excitement not seen since the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 This was a scene.\u00c2\u00a0 Which David Letterman wanted a part of.\u00c2\u00a0 But Nine Inch Nails never did do his show.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?\u00c2\u00a0 Dave could look hip, but what would it do for the band?\u00c2\u00a0 Who’d already reached many more people than they’d originally anticipated.\u00c2\u00a0 Who would seem positively small on television.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas their music was so big!<\/p>\n
You wouldn’t drop the needle on a NIN album at a party, certainly not a club, unless it was inhabited by misfits, who felt the mainstream had rejected them.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, the mainstream barely exists.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of being an outsider, Trent Reznor is a leader, a beacon, telling all in attendance, all paying attention, to do it your own way.<\/p>\n
Imagine being in a relationship where you never had to compromise, where you were loved for the way you are.\u00c2\u00a0 A job where you could tell off the boss.\u00c2\u00a0 This world doesn’t exist, except in art.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the privilege of the artist, an ability to create in his own exact vision.\u00c2\u00a0 A charge which Trent Reznor embodies, blazing a path in his own unique direction, willing to make mistakes along the way, worried not a whit what some overlord might think.<\/p>\n
And what results is music made for few.\u00c2\u00a0 But these few, they adore him.\u00c2\u00a0 For expressing all their frustration, for being who they want to be, uncompromised.<\/p>\n
Just before the houselights went down, Tony Hawk came over to say hi to Jim.\u00c2\u00a0 Guerinot told me he’d learned tons from working with the skateboard king.\u00c2\u00a0 In the music business we sucked at the tit of the label, we were beholden to the company to both make us and direct us.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Tony had had to cobble it together himself.\u00c2\u00a0 Take chances. Tony was what the music business became.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, he ultimately got lucky with his video game, but its success was not foreseen.\u00c2\u00a0 Tony’s an artist, not only on four wheels, but in business, willing to take chances, to do it a different way, only by taking risks can you get a surprising result.<\/p>\n
The audience was not pretty.\u00c2\u00a0 These were not scenesters.\u00c2\u00a0 I saw so much black, you’d think we were at a wake. Which, on one hand, we were, the final NIN performance.\u00c2\u00a0 But so many of these people believe they’re at a permanent wake, that the odds are stacked against them, they look to the music for a release.<\/p>\n
And there was tons of music.\u00c2\u00a0 Three encores and thirty nine songs.<\/p>\n
Things started to heat up twelve numbers in.\u00c2\u00a0 When Mike Garson took the stage.<\/p>\n
Shouldn’t it have been Benmont Tench?\u00c2\u00a0 No, diss to Mr. Heartbreaker, but when you’re in Los Angeles, your special guests are Hollywood stars, not an avant garde pianist whose one fling with the mainstream was thirty odd years ago on David Bowie’s "Aladdin Sane".<\/p>\n
But Mike added a new element.\u00c2\u00a0 Prior to this, the music had been an assault.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, it had texture, mood.<\/p>\n
Then came Gary Numan.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, the guy with the slick ‘do who sang "Cars".\u00c2\u00a0 But although a novelty on MTV, a one hit wonder, Mr. Numan was not in it for the fame, but the sound.\u00c2\u00a0 Trent considers him to be a progenitor.\u00c2\u00a0 Gary, looking little less for wear, not having gone under the surgeon’s knife, but having been hermetically sealed in a basement, continuing to play music, stood at the mic with authority and dealt out the lyrics.\u00c2\u00a0 Then tapped on a keyboard at the front of the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 In this world, Les Pauls and synthesizers co-exist.<\/p>\n
Encore one featured Atticus Ross and Dave Navarro.<\/p>\n
Encore two was performed with the Dillinger Escape Plan.\u00c2\u00a0 An act I’d never heard of, but I’ll never forget.\u00c2\u00a0 A complete band, a NIN doppelganger, who took the stage with such energy that you could feel it blasting in your face.\u00c2\u00a0 The drummer pounded, then they kicked around his big bass drum, threw it in the air.\u00c2\u00a0 The guitarist twirled his guitar around his body, again and again.\u00c2\u00a0 And the lead singer jumped into the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Rick Mueller said it was the most exciting act he’d seen all year, Jim said he wanted to see them again.\u00c2\u00a0 All I’ll say is they got my attention!<\/p>\n
The final six song encore was more melodic.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like after beating you in the head, taking you on an aural mystery tour, Trent wanted to soothe you, let you know it was going to be all right, that he’d be back.<\/p>\n
And he will.\u00c2\u00a0 Or so he said.<\/p>\n
So, I believe you’ll get another chance to experience mindblowing staging.\u00c2\u00a0 Supposedly stripped down, the flashing lights, the strobes, created an otherworldly atmosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the sixties, but even darker.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the survivors of Altamont regrouped and started making their own music.<\/p>\n
Will you get another chance to hear this band?\u00c2\u00a0 The drummer who never let up, who pounded like Keith Moon, albeit harder and slower?\u00c2\u00a0 Robin Finck?\u00c2\u00a0 The bass player who could manipulate a double acoustic in addition to his electric?<\/p>\n
I’m not sure.\u00c2\u00a0 But whatever concoction he comes up with, we’ll be interested.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Trent Reznor is a true artist. Testing limits, doing it his way.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching him perform, all the executives got small, retreated in the distance.\u00c2\u00a0 Although singular, not leading any mass charge, Trent is doing it for us.\u00c2\u00a0 Illustrating that you can do it your way and not only survive, but thrive.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not telling you to buy an album, download a track.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m just saying when you watch acts develop in the future and wonder where they got their ideas, look to people like Trent Reznor and Radiohead.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about making music that sounds like theirs, but coming from the same place.\u00c2\u00a0 That the art is king.\u00c2\u00a0 And that NO ONE is going to tell them what to do!<\/p>\n
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