i'm not as cool as trent reznor

the wife and i went to see NIN the other day
(i’d not seen them live before / she had,…. when she was 15.)

now…
i am not one of those concert goers
that stands in the seats drunkenly dancing
signing along
screaming hysterically
or crowding the front to take blurry cell phone pictures
i go to watch
to be played to
to be surprised
to enjoy the sonic atmosphere the people watching

that said
the presentation didn’t get interesting until the screens came down
and the music got decidedly un metal

sitting in a room full of roughly 19,000 people
hushed to near silence
while trent and company played material from ghosts
was spectacular

ironically the material i felt presented the best
were songs from the fragile which i hate
and year zero
also which im not that fond of
im attributing it to the facts

1. the guitarist wasnt wanking away (working on getting fired i called it)
2. and there was an absence of the typical ridiculous rock band posturing on a stage that is far too large for five people.
3. also, there were three people on stage synths / effects / controllers in front of a sound reactive screen

overall the whole performance
left me wishing i had a budget bigger then zero dollars for live presentation
and wondering if trent misses playing small venues

im sure the large arena shows are a nice paycheck
19000 × 60$ is a nice days work for sure
but
at what cost

i have a hard enough time playing to a crowd of <100
i cannot fathom 19,000 screaming fans
in one place
at one time
paying that much
to watch me stare as if frozen by the glow of the laptop screen
grimacing occasionally
pressing buttons
and smoking
which is precisely why i will never play a show of that scale

---

• suzana dan

  2008-09-02

  maybe you are not so cool but I love your music. don’t want to say those niiice words like “your music make me dream” just want to thank you for making me happy to hear beautiful sounds. maybe you’ll come to romania, that will be amazing

• sam

  2009-01-11

  Yes mr rb, even though you are not as cool as trent, obviously, i would like to cauterize your wound by letting you know that i am actually only 18.7 % as cool as you…

  my live sessions involve my cat, my partner and sometimes a couple of ketamined friends…

  but all seriousness aside, I also just went to see trent for the first time after being a fanboy since 92, and concur, the ghost session was phenom and the fragile bits were very kind. But unlike you for me the broken era and phm era stuff was the icing, I live nostalgia.

  To be getting as cool as trent you’re going to have to bring at least 4 laptops with 2 hurled at the audience and one to kick around… Pour a water bottle on yourself every 10 minutes, and most importantly, SUFFER BEAUTIFULLY.

  ;)

• max Jackson

  2009-02-10

  That must have been an awesome show. I like your writing style. Its poetic, and the short lines are good for a short attention span.

  Your music rocks. Certainly on my list of influences. Your webdesign too! Proemland introduced me to textpattern. Thanks.

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