Last night I went to the Nine Inch Nails show at Kool Haus, with Dresden Dolls openning. I’d checked out some of the stuff on the Dresden Dolls site and wasn’t really into it. some of it was ok, but other parts i thought sounded like a small child banging on a piano. not the sort of thing i was really looking forward to. however, i was pleasantly suprised by their live show. the one kid-banging-on-piano song was in there, but for the most part they were fairly decent. nothing earth shattering, but decent. the part that i found most confusing is the block of cover songs they did, taking up over a third of their set. they started with ‘war pigs’ by black sabbath, then went into ‘amsterdam’ by david bowie, and finally ‘karma police’ by radiohead. they were quite true to the original forms of the songs, not really putting any new twist on it. i thought the point of openning bands was to introduce the crowd to their music and get them warmed up for the headliner. they did ok in the warmup department, but doing covers just like the original isn’t really going to make me want to buy a dresden dolls album, it makes me want to pull out some bowie and radiohead…
anyway, nine inch nails put on a great show. they went on at 10:05 and played non-stop for about an hour and 40 minutes, with no encores. the crowd wanted more, but i suppose after 1:40 you’ve had your money’s worth. i know i wasn’t complaining. song selection was great, playing a good mix from their catalog. i expected to hear more from ‘with teeth’, but wasn’t too upset that they only played a few. it’s not a bad album, and certainly has some great songs, but overall i find it a bit weak. of course, he ended up playing some of the songs i’m least into, but who knows. the new single, ‘the hand that feeds’, was pretty great live. trent was pretty quiet, with only a few ‘thank you’s between songs, but the band seemed to be having a good time, and the crowd was definitely into it. fairly early in the show (i think during ‘march of the pigs’) trent even jumped out onto the crowd. kind of fun. only part that sucked was that it was pretty damn warm in the venue, but that’s to be expected when you cram that many people in.
here’s the setlist:
the frail
the wretched
you know what you are
march of the pigs
the line begins to blur
piggy
terrible lie
burn
closer
reptile
the big come down
gave up
the day the whole world went away
suck
even deeper
wish
hurt
the hand that feeds
starfuckers, inc
head like a hole
i’ll be back at Kool Haus for Coldplay tonight, so i’ll try and post a setlist tomorrow. i’m going to try and bring my camera tonight, so i might have some photos too. stay tuned!