Head Like a ... Learn the Fucking Words You Asshole

Last Wednesday, Nine Inch Nails played at Stubb's. Multiple people that I know asked me the same question when I told them I was going to the show, "Nine Inch Nails is still around?" Apparently no one remembers "The Fragile" which in my opinion is a high quality album. But never mind that, I was going to see Nine Inch Nails! Things didn't get off on the right foot; I was late leaving and had to deal with the 6pm I-35 parking lot situation. I was feeling rather impatient though, so I took back roads all the way downtown.

The Show
When I finally got to Stubbs, I saw two big lines. Both appeared to be going into the venue, but one was dramatically shorter than the other. I decided to go for the short line and quickly got into the show. Note to self: always look for the really short line. The other people I was meeting stood in line for an extra 30 minutes for nothing. I secured a great spot 20ft from the stage, dead center.

The Dresden Dolls
They were pretty good. Their drummer can wail like no one's business. Really good. And they did a cover of War Pigs (the black sabbath song, or as I like to remember it, the Faith No More cover song on Falling to Pieces) which was really interesting. I liked their set, despite the people in the crowd that were flipping them off (as if that accomplishes anything).

Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails came on at 9pm, which although extremely early, was a welcome surprise to me because now I had no room to myself being that close to the stage. Instead, I had the pleasure of rubbing up against 5 people at the same time, none of which were attractive, female, or smelled the least bit desirable. The show was awesome. It was as if Trent Reznor picked my favorite songs from each album specifically for me. The Downward Spiral? Let's play "Reptile". Broken? Let's play "Suck" and "Gave Up". They even played "Burn" (the non-album track from Natural Born Killers). Rock out. The only frustrating thing is that there was a lot of singing along. Not that singing along is particularly bad, but the guy next to me was a horrible singer. And I'm not talking bad like the rest of humanity, but rather horrible as in "it should be crime for you to speak and thus should not do so in public". Especially really loudly in my ear. But if that weren't bad enough, during "Hurt" this guy had to continually sing the wrong lyrics with the wrong timing. I'd give a sample lyric, but it hurts me so bad I can't bring myself to relive those feelings again. The stage was definitely toned-down from the last time I saw them (on the '94 downward spiral tour). No big screens with videos playing this time, no smashing of equipment after every song, just some giant LEDs (which looked pretty cool though they were very simple), and five guys bringing teh rock.

In summary:
The show was at Stubb's BBQ
There were about 2000 people at the show
The jam session was awesome

NINE INCH NAILS
NINE INCH NAILS
NINE INCH NAILS
NINE INCH NAILS

Rock over Austin, rock on Chicago
Winamp: It whips the llama's ass