We will find a better place in this twilight

(Photo by Chris; the rest of his photos are here, and his review is here.)

Whenever I try to explain my affinity for all things Trent Reznor, I know it's hard not to come off sounding a little bit psycho. And yet the first thing that springs to mind when I think about the concert I saw last night at the Mohegan Sun Arena is, well...a little...you're going to have to take it or leave it, I guess.

I probably won't convince anyone of this, since various message boards and blogs have been keeping very good track of the tour so far, to the point where my companion for last night's adventure, Chris Clark, already knew how the concert would be set up and end. But I had been avoiding most of the "spoiler" details prior to the show and had no idea what was going to happen.

Now take it back a few weeks, to one of my many replayings since The Slip's release of its top single, "Discipline." It's probably the most well-crafted upbeat tune from Trent since "Closer." My first listenings focused on the catchy beat and that sense, which "Closer" also gives you, of perpetual motion, and gyrating, restless energy.

After several replayings, though, it was the piano I began to notice most of all, how incongruous its measured pace was against the hyperactive drum machine, how chilly - and that's really the only goofy word I can think of for it - its texture felt against the rest of those warm, thumping sounds.

I've written before about being a synesthete, and while my neural wires are mainly crossed where colors meet numbers and letters, at times I have a mild association of abstract color with music. While I listened to "Discipline" for the 54th time and noticed that chilly piano, I began to imagine a darkened room, and for some reason, a purple-colored light. Purple, silver, black, deep blue - that's now the palette for "Discipline" in my mind.

Again, you have to take my word for this. I realize how easy it would be not to.

Because when the band launched into "Discipline", the fourth song on last night's set list, they darkened the stage. A deep purple light shone out of that darkness, picking up texture on clouds left by a smoke machine during another song. The band made sure to bring out that piano riff.

So like I said, you can take it or leave it, I guess. I realize how loopy it sounds. But when I say I feel a weird kind of familiarity with the mind behind this music, a strange connection across miles and years, and that each new album and concert feels like a reaffirmation of that connection, that is the kind of thing I mean.

***

As I mentioned, Chris had been keeping up online far better than I had with what to expect from the night's stage show, but really, neither of us were in any way prepared for what we actually saw. 

About halfway into the set, various screens and scrims dropped around the band, now making it look like they were playing behind sheets of rain, now creating a gorgeous, glowering desert landscape to accompany an abstract tune. One of the principal means of creating those effects was a new bit of gadgetry I'd never seen before: a delicate, curved bank of lights somewhere between a curtain and a screen.

Once again, the thought and effort put into the stagecraft of this show - as well as the advantages of ever-more-refined technology - took my sad, shortsighted little expectations and pretty much obliterated them.

"Holy shit," I kept saying to Chris, as screens were flown in and out, effects lit them up, and the band grooved away behind, between, in front of and beside them, using every light bulb and square inch of stage for effect.

During that highly visual middle section of the show, Trent's whispering face showed up projected by a portable camera, larger than life, on the curved screen at the front of the stage. This image shone amid abstract forms that pulsed to the rhythm of "The Greater Good". At the end of the song, someone came onstage with another light and 'erased' the screen, revealing the band behind it.

When this happened, I amended my previous statement to, "Holy fucking shit."

It's quite something when a band whose every move you've followed for 14 years can still make you say that.

***

Trent's generosity as a performer is something he's famous for, but last night it continued to amaze me. To create that effect for "The Greater Good", he had to stand on the darkened stage while someone put a camera with a spotlight mounted directly on the front right into his face, essentially blinding him, perform that song, and then launch directly into the thrashing "Wish".

I lost track of the instruments he played - guitar and keyboards, obviously, but there were some mallet instruments in there, too, and a wind instrument that may actually have been a recorder during one of the Ghosts tracks.

Later on in the show, he spoke to the audience. I had been vaguely aware of some other show cancellations this tour on "doctor's orders" for Trent, but it wasn't until he spoke at the end of the show and I heard every crack and scratch in his voice that I realized how terrible his laryngitis really is. (So terrible, in fact, that tonight's show in Worcester, which I also have tickets to, has been postponed.)

"Every show we do is different, because every venue we're in is a little bit different," he rasped, as fangirls and fanboys struggled between staying quiet for what he was saying and screaming out their messages of adoration.

As he spoke, lights from the stage swung into the crowd. "Tonight, the difference is that...we can see you."

Under the lights, hearing this, several hundred people on the floor began waving furiously.

"There's a guy with a really cool T-shirt right there," Trent said, pointing. I'm sure at least a dozen guys think they were that guy today. "I've been lookin' at it all night."

He cleared his throat. "Agh." It really was painful to listen to. "Anyway, we're all going to meet at the Denny's just up the street aftewards." 

I was surprised at how friendly he was with the crowd. For one thing, this audience was not, on the scale of NIN shows, a very active one. It wasn't really their fault--the arena had been set up with chairs on the floor. Chairs. on. the. floor. This is the definition of "party foul." Oh, and security guards were posted along the aisles between those chairs so no one could get away with a pit rush - in the actual pit. Under those lights from the stage, I could see people rockin' out as best they could, but it wasn't the tangled sea of humanity I was used to at a Nine Inch Nails show.

I've heard of shows, years ago, where Trent railed at audiences as relatively still as this one, going so far as to leave the stage if a mosh pit's committment to the show seemed lesser than his own. I've also heard of shows where he cussed out the venue for things like chairs on the floor.

But it got to the end of this show, in this obscure corner of Connecticut, and even having been able to see his strangely still GA section all night, Trent seemed tickled just by the sight of everyone's bright, shining faces.

***

So, yeah, what I'm getting at is that this weren't your daddy's Nine Inch Nails show. Sure, there were points, like "The Big Come Down" and "Wish", "Terrible Lie" and "Only," where I threw caution and the rest of my rather reserved section of the arena to the wind, and danced my fool ass off. There  were moments where colossal light banks flashed, disco-like, behind nihilistic lyrics, and it felt like it always has, like a furious dance party at the end of the world.

But one of the ways this particular Nine Inch Nails experience surprised me was that I found myself just as often actually sitting down, pupils fixed and dilated, gazing quietly at some meditative spectacle. This time around, there were just as many moments of subtlety, and intimacy, as kick-in-the-face intensity.

Biographical details aren't supposed to factor in to impressions of an artist, but when it comes to this one, I can't help it. As the screen work grew ever more elaborate, and the band had to hit mark after mark, it occurred to me that this kind of show wouldn't be possible without Trent's sobriety. Past tours may have been more intense, but they have not been as fine a musical product; It probably helps, I thought, that Trent actually knows where he is.

And I mean that in the figurative as well as the literal sense. Beginning on the With Teeth tour, and reaching a crescendo with Lights in the Sky, Trent seems far more aware and appreciative of his audience. Concerts are increasingly a fireside chat between Trent and his 30,000 closest friends, punctuated by drum machines. I can't help but think that this is also a result of Trent's sobriety, and the way he's matured over the years.

His more recent lyrics have embodied those changes, too. I once wrote a thesis paper in college about Nine Inch Nails fans as a youth subculture, and focused much of my tortured prose on the use of "I" and "you" in his lyrics, which gave them a personal edge people like myself found irresistible. These days, there's just as much "we".

"Shame on us," goes my favorite of his new songs, "Zero Sum."

We knew from the start

May God have mercy on our dirty little hearts

"We" "us" "our" - forget the combative dichotomy of "I" and "you". Trent, and his music, look outward these days.

***

Probably the high point of the entire evening, when it came to that strange quietude, and the intimacy between Trent and audience, was the encore, specifically, "Hurt" and the final number, "In This Twilight."

When the first guitar chords of "Hurt" were struck, the collective scream of recognition from this audience was deafening. I've seen this track played live about a half-dozen times, more if you count the tour videos I have, and I've never heard such an outpouring as it began.

At the end of the song, which is a rush of guitar feedback, the stage lights swung over the audience again. First was the floor, to which Trent held up his hand in a motionless wave, and nodded solemnly. Then the lights swept up to our section, where in front of me a guy leapt to his feet, throwing up enthusiastic metal horns. That motion seemed to catch Trent's eye, and he nodded to our section, too, holding up his hand in our direction. Not quite as great as him recognizing my T-shirt, but it will definitely, definitely do.

"Hurt" was quite a moment, but "In this Twilight" was the apotheosis of what this night had been about. Behind the band on the screen was an image of city lights under a fading sky. A blood-red sun began to set behind it. Purple, pink, red and orange flooded the stage, bathing the arena in twilight ambience.

Watch the sun,
As it crawls across a final time
And it feels like,
Like it was a friend.
It is watching us,
And the world we set on fire
Do you wonder,
If it feels the same?

More lighters, held aloft, twinkling like constellations in the darkened arena. More stillness. More singing along. I was transfixed by the beauty of the light and the image of that city under the stars. We all were.

And the sky is filled with light
Can you see it?
All the black is really white
If you believe it
As your time is running out
Let me take away your doubt
You can find a better a place
In this twilight

At the very end of the song, a spotlight shone down on the guitarist, Robin Finck. He waved to the crowd, soaked in their rousing ovation, and departed.

Dust to dust,
Ashes in your hair remind me
What it feels like
And I won't feel again
Night descends
Could I have been a better person
If I could only do it all again

Next the drummer, Josh Frese, lit up, waved, and left. Followed by bass player Justin Meldal-Johnson. Followed by Alessandro Cortini from behind the keyboards, and it was finally just Trent, with his own keyboard, alone with us.

And the sky is filled with light
Can you see it?
All the black is really white
If you believe it
And the longing that you feel
You know none of this is real
You will find a better a place
In this twilight

Other Nine Inch Nails shows have left me spent and exhausted, or hyped up, screaming for more. Other Nine Inch Nails shows have ended abruptly, or with a bang on some explosive visual.

This one ended with Trent alone under a spotlight, with his hand up in silent salute. This one ended with me, speechless, verklempt, even, watching him walk offstage with one hand over my heart.

Comments

[ChrisClark]

Awesome piece. This is the kind of thing I think you do so well. There's a great narrative going on here, especially at the end (and also in the section where you're reacting to how his voice sounded).

Sorry that the Worcester show got postponed on you, but that just gives you more time to recoup and get psyched for it. Right?

[Joe]

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

[amazed]

probably the best review ever written