S.A. Sebastian: A View From The Bottom

Wednesday night’s Nine Inch Nails concert at the IZOD Center, in Rutherford, NJ, was an amazing performance and multi-media event. I would love to say that the band put on the unbelievably rawkus and energetic show, they have been know to put on in the past. For the most part there wasn’t a lot movement and action onstage by the band, except when they played songs like “March of the PIgs,” or “Head Like a Hole.” Robin Finck often looked awkward and clumsy, moving almost like a cross between Jerry Only and a guy in a horse costume. He even had a Guns ‘n Roses moment ripping out a very 80s blues-metal solo during Terrible Lie. The best comparison I could draw about the band itself is that they were like going to see an orchestra, concentrating more on playing the music than performing the music. But that didn’t make the concert any less cool, or exciting. The musicianship and the song list alone was enough to make any NIN fan happy, whether they jumped around like idiots, or not; playing songs from Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, Downward Spiral, The Fragile, With Teeth, Year Zero, Ghosts and The Slip for over two and a half hours. What the band lacked in visuals, was made up for in the amazing lighting and visual effects. 

I don’t think I can describe the stage setup and do it any justice; so I’m not really going to go into details. There was a wall of lights along the back, were 2 transparent curtains and a giant LCD wall. Sounds boring, but the transparent curtains were actually a video display, and together with the wall-sized LCD, made the most amazing 3-D visual effects; AND was interactive. As the band came near the front curtain, holes opened to reveal the band standing behind, the closer they got to the screen the less obscure the band got. See, I really can’t do it justice, so just check out the pictures.

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Saw Van Halen Saturday, November 3 in New Jersey. After seeing a bunch of the rehearsal footage I was very skeptical about the show being very good. I can honestly say I was very underwhelmed by Van Halen with David Lee Roth. Everyone has been saying for years how Dave is a “great performer” a “great entertainer.” Tonight David Lee Roth was neither, he was more like Ozzy Osbourne back in the Ultimate Sin era–old and rickety. Sure he did a couple of kicks, but he just walked slowly back and forth across the stage while Eddie ran circle around him-and Eddie has an artificial hip! He looked very uncomfortable and out of place.

The rest of the band was all very good, Eddie can still play a mean guitar, but he improvised some songs so much that they were unrecognizable. Wolfgang played all the parts as good as the record, and Alex was Alex. In order for Dave to sing some of the tunes they were done in different keys. The Fair Warning stuff, which is tuned to D flat on the album was done in E live. Eddie had a meltdown because his monitor was messed up. He spent 3-4 songs distracted and yelling at the monitor guy. He eventually pulled a Ginger Baker and threw the monitor off the stage at the sound man. (I saw Ginger Baker do this with BBM at the Marquee in London, only it was a 3 foot tall side fill, Eddie threw a wedge. Still very entertaining.)

Overall-good effort, good song selection, good musicallity, but they all looked like they were phoning it in. I bet they are still having problems and we won’t be seeing much of Van Halen after this tour. There were so many drunken fans at the show that loved it and saw nothing wrong or amiss. They might as well have been at home listening to their Van Halen albums and they wouldn’t have known any better. What would have made this concert great is Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony. They are loaded with energy, always having fun, something which is totally missing from the new old Van Halen.