Nine Inch Nails at Brixton Academy, 1 Dec 1999


Not even a high fever, headache and a bad case of tonsilitis (or mono, aka glandular fever)
 could stop me from attending the extremely sold-out NIN show last night. At first I was 
really disappointed in having balcony seats, but in my current state, I was rather glad 
that I could sit down for the whole show.

First off, due to traffic snarls, I arrived inside the venue about 10 minutes into Atari 
Teenage Riot's set. I sincerely wished I would've missed the entire performance. They were
 AWFUL. I always support opening bands on principle, but I couldn't even clap for them. 
It was 30 minutes of white noise. No rhythm, no melody, no discernible change in the noise.
 Even their strobe lights had no rhythm (they weren't synchronised). The audience had 
every right to boo them. (It takes alot for me to not feel sorry for an opening band, too)

But luckily, NIN were as wonderful as ATR were horrible. They played for nearly two hours,
 and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of Pretty Hate Machine material they went 
through. Trent was center stage, with Lohner on his right and Finck on his left (switched
 from their positions in the past). The stage lighting itself was very cool: above each
 member was a circular set of white lights to shine down on the person, and suspended 
from this rack were 5-10 fluorescent light bulbs of various lengths. 

Apart from the huge amounts of fog, the other incredibly cool visual effect was the 
projection screens. A large, white, semi-transparant screen (like the one used in the 
Hurt video) was dropped between the audience and the band during three songs). During 
La Mer, the screen showed black and white video clips of ocean waves and underwater 
scenes. For The Great Beyond, a light was put on Trent so you could see him through the 
screen, and color films of cells dividing, heart valves, mutated sperm, and other various
 inside-the-body shots were shown. Then, the screen was only on during the introduction
 of The Way out is Through, starting with grey geometric patterns but bursting into 
flames at the instrumental crescendo near the beginning.

As far as crowd interaction went, Trent didn't say much other than "Fuck you Pigs" before
 March of the Pigs, and stressing to the crowd how much they appreciated all the applause 
for the encore. A good deal of the earlier songs turned into complete crowd singalongs,
 though, which is always fun at concerts where you know the words and can join in. =)

I kept a running setlist of the show, so here it is (hopefully correct!):
Somewhat Damaged
Terrible Lie
Sin
March of The Pigs [w/ extra ending]
Piggy
The Frail
The Wretched
No, You Don't
Gave Up
La Mer [w/ the film screen]
The Great Below [w/ the film screen]
The Way Out is Through [w/ the film screen at the beginning]
Wish
Into the Void
Down In It
Head Like a Hole
------
The Day the World Went Away [w/ a different drum break]
Starfuckers
Closer
Hurt

The show overall was phenomenal -- Trent's voice was on, the guitar work was album-quality,
 and they played just as many slow, soft songs as the hardcore industrial ones, showing 
that they realy have the talent to cross a wide musical range.

On a personal side, I got a great offical teeshirt (not from the dumb touts outside) that
 has half the NIN logo and "The Fragile" on the front, and on the back, "Fragility 1999" 
and "Where the Fuck Where You?" and all the European dates. Although my mother would not 
approve, the shirt was too funny to pass up.