My DJ boss just totally scored me a pair of free Nine Inch Nails tickets for their concert in Calgary on Tuesday! Woo! I'm so excited! Just had to share that.

That's cool. I hear they put on a good show.

The one time I saw them they put on a fantastic show, and I really want to catch them at one of the two Ohio stops this tour. I'm hearing rave reviews of the new (well, sorta new) live lineup, and apparently the new songs are sounding really great live.

And last night, the first night of the tour propper, they played God Given live for the first time. If they're going to be playing some of the never played YZ songs, I'm sold for sure. (God Given is a faveorite of mine.)

Let us know how the show goes.

For SURE. I actually just discovered NIN, so I'm trying really hard this weekend to catch up on their music. I know the popular shit, of course; Hurt, Closer, Head Like a Hole, Hand That Feeds, etc. I started to appreciate them more since I've subscribed to XM radio (because people in this Bible Belt town would get lynched if they played that on the FM radio).

Funny story...my friend scored free Tool tickets about a year ago and because no one else could go, I went. I wasn't a particularly big Tool fan, but that concert made it for me. They were SPECTACULAR live. So I started to really get into their music, buying and dling as much of their stuff as I could. My friend pointed out that if I liked Tool I should give NIN a try. Their newest album, The Slip, and Year Zero are both amazing CDs and that of their older stuff that I've been able to DL over the past year is sounding great. I'm really looking forward to seeing them live.

Anyway, I'll let you know what I think. So excited!!

What a fucking awesome concert!! Woo!!

First I would like to point out that the opening band, Crystal Castle, sucked beyond belief. I have been to many a concert in my day and never have I ever heard anyone boo the opening act. Until last night. The band itself was great - it was the lead singer that everyone hated. As my cohort said, "this band would be great if there wasn't some woman on stage screaming." It wasn't even good screaming. It was "ack! ack! ack!" The band was kind of techno-rock - lots of heavy beats and synthesizer sound effects - and when the lead singer was not near the mic it was phenomenal. They did an instrumental song and it was great. The ear-splitting, high pitched yelping of the chick on the mic was not complimentary to the music in the least and that is why she got booed off stage.

However, Nine Inch Nails more than made up for it. To start off the concert, Trent played some new stuff (that I was not that familiar with) that rocked. The lighting system and the band were set up like your typical rock concerts - coloured and flashing lights, lead singer in the middle, bassist on one side, guitarist on the other and the drummer elevated in the back. After about three hardcore rocking songs, there was a little interlude and some screens came down. Everyone changed up positions and the really amazing part of the concert started.

These screens and lights were used to put on an AMAZING visual show to compliment the music. They played with silhouettes, sometimes each instrument had it's own pulsing light, and during the performance of some of the instrumental pieces from Ghosts I-IV there were changing sceneries in the background. They had cameras on stage to project distorted images of Trent as he sang one song. For the song "Survivalism" they set up security-type cameras on stage and in the crowd and, combined with some canned video of two bathrooms and a stairwell, created an eery vision of Big Brother. During yet another song, the screen behind Trent, who was lit to look like a silhouette once again, was covered in static and wherever Trent moved the static had a little peep hole in it. For the performance of "Hurt" (the second-last song of the night) there were two amber spotlights pointed in opposite directions at just Trent creating the illusion that he was depressingly alone and isolated from the thousands and thousands in attendance. Finally, for the last of the encore songs, each band member again had their own pulsing light that went out as the musicians stopped playing their instruments, one by one, until only Trent was left with his piano in the middle of the stage.

The music, obviously, was phenomenal. But what everyone was blown away at was the visual feast we were treated to. Not since I went to Tool, where the creepy images from their various videos were projected from the ceiling onto the white stage for the benefit of those of us in the nosebleeds, have I seen such a visual and amazingly complimentary light show. Phenomenal.

If any of you have a chance to go see this tour DO. It will be well worth your money. Just show up late enough to spare yourself the torture of the opening act. Haha!

If ya'd like to add a little intro and outro piece to your review, I'd be happy to publish it on Da' Site. Under our "entertainment" section.

Just a little wordsmithing to make it a standalone article.

Cool. I'll pm you the whole thing in a minute. I go to lots of concerts so I can review them all if you want (that is if I remember them. Haha)

I saw the setlist from the show. Looks outstanding. Can't believe they've started playing In This Twilight (that'd be the last song they played, the one you mentioned.) God Given is one of my favorites too, so I'm really disappointed it looks like I won't get to see them on this tour.

Thanks for the review. NIN are always Ace live.

I suppose I could add that I'm seeing them live next month. So very, very excited. Especially since Josh (the drummer) is leaving the band after this leg of the tour. People are calling this lineup the best since the Downward Spiral/ Self Destruction tour of 94-95, so I'm very excited to see it before Josh pisses off to do whatever he's planning next.

I don't care that I'm tripple posting, the show last night deserves it. I thought when I saw Tom Waits earlier this year that nothing would top that, but I was dead wrong. Everything about last night's show, the visuals, the energy, the setlist, the sound, was amazing and perfect.

Even after getting a few hours of sleep, I'm still buzzing from the show. SO AWESOME.

Is that the same tour that I saw, LFV? The one with the super fun light show and whatnot?

Yep. Though during Echoplex, the first song of the encore, the screen fucked up. To fix it, Trent threw a mic stand through it.

"We don't smash shit that much anymore, but sometimes shit just happens, you know?"

Was that the song where the screen mimicked the drums? Because that song fucked up at my show, too.

Yup. Apparently it's been messing up more and more as the tour's gone on, and Trent got tired of it.