tb

Since Echoiingthesound seems offline, I figured I'd post this here.....

Anyway, I just got back around midnight from the show at the Hollywood Bowl.

First off, I don't think I'll see another ****ing show at that place even if
it's a double bill of a Roth era VH Reunion and Led Zep with Bonham
reanimated in peak form. The place just has so many negatives for rock shows
it's ridiculous. Just parking takes 45 minutes and they "stack" park cars in
a huge tiered lot on a hill so if you're early, your car will be buried by
hundreds of later arrivals and you may as well consign yourself to spending
the night there because it'll take hours to get out. I bypassed that whole
****ing deal by parking kind of on a curb in this lot right next to the road
out and sure enough, nobody was parked blocking me when the show let out so
I was lucky enough to zip right out after the show ended.

The other big negative is the lower sections about the first 1/2 of the bowl
up to the "pool" seating in front of the stage (which is basically an
orchestra pit with folding chairs) have "boxes" which are tiny ****ing waist
high cubicles about 4 ft x 6 ft with 4 folding chairs per box. It's
virtually impossible to move around in these dinky things and anytime
someone in the back pair of seats wants to go for whatever reason, the front
guy next to the itty bitty opening has to move his chair out to free up the
person in the back. Sitting is pretty much being crammed in business class
on a jet and about as conducive to enjoying a concert.

Anyway, I got there really early, about 5:30 as I heard traffic would be
****ed due to the fire in Burbank, freeway work and other bullshit. No such
problems. Nice cool night, no smoke in the air from the fires.

After claiming my seat in my cubicle, I went off in search of some sort of
drink, only to find beer or wine was all they served. **** that. So I
fiddled around with my shitty little digital camera for a while (they let
people bring in any kind of camera which was cool although all my photos
turned out like shit) and the opening band, Autolux came on and did their
set for about 40 minutes. Nothing really mind blowing from this band,
although the barefooted female drummer was kinda fun to watch. Music wise,
pretty much like a 2nd generation Sonic Youth/Jesus and Mary Chain type of
band.

Queens of the Stone Age came on around 8pm and played a pretty long and full
set lasting well over an hour. I can't say I really enjoyed their set,
although I liked their few well known tunes. However, their last song, "No
One Knows" was stretched out and imo, screwed up with a craptacular guitar
wankathon that was completely unnecessary. Also, singer Josh Homme seems to
be looking to pick up David Lee Roth's old habit of using the same
(semi-funny) one-liners at every show, main one being (pointing to guy in
audience) "you've seen more ****-ends then weekends." Ho ho. Come on Josh,
gimme a break......

Nine Inch Nails came on around 9:15 and opened with the somewhat mellow
"Love Is Not Enough"in a kind of understated way by keeping the band
silhouetted behind a huge white transparent curtain. Trent Reznor has buffed
himself up to a ridiculous degree complete with a nearly shaved head and is
as intense a frontman as ever. Interestingly, it looked like the band's
regular drummer, Jerome Dillon (although it was tough to tell from the
extreme angle on the right of the stage I where my cube was at) was playing
tonight even though his heart condition has caused the cancellation of
several shows including yesterday's Oakland show along with a message on the
official site that playing further with the band live was dangerous to
Dillon's health. Trent said absolutely nothing regarding the situation or
even acknowledging his drummer at all which was kind of weird.

One key thing right away was that this was the first NIN show I've ever seen
where there was absolutely no moshing, slamming, crowd surfing, ect in the
pit. The Bowl security basically passed out flyers when you entered saying
if you did any of this stuff, you'd get booted from the show and I think
that really put a damper on the pit crowd. On the positive side, the asshole
factor was pretty low which mosh pits always seem to bring out the worst
****faces anyway but the overall heavy handed "behave" atmosphere was
entirely unsuited for this kind of show.

The audience was reasonably into most of the show considering the
limitations of the venue but the middle part with 3 songs performed (or
sampled, heh) with the band behind the white curtain with movies projected
on it of movie images of microbes, insects, birds primates then humans
leading to all the bad shit mankind does to himself and the planet grew
heavy handed after a few minutes and kind of killed the momentum which
really didn't pick back up until the last few songs of the show. This
segment seemed to show a new side of Reznor who appears to be moving away
from his shtick of rejected angry psycho to more of a world weary observer
of the human condition and the planet's ecology at large.

"Hurt" which was performed by Reznor alone on keyboards has regretfully
become a big sing along anthem complete with hand waving and lighters like
some sorta alterna-Stairway to Heaven. Trent shoulda said something like
"this is a song Johnny Cash stole from me, I'm stealing it back."

Reptile and **** back to back was kind of the wild card songs for tonight
which was cool and got back a lot of momentum and energy that the show and
crowd seemed to lose up to that point. Head Like a Hole as always ended the
show and right away the house lights came and there was no doubt that was it
for the show at 11pm straight up.

Overall, a good show but not truly great like the best NIN shows I saw
during the DS tour, especially the Hollywood Palace show on 4/19/94.

Setlist (not quite sure of a couple songs/order):

Love Is Not Enough
Wish
Terrible Lie
The Line Begins To Blur
March of the Pigs
The Frail / The Wretched
Closer
Burn
Gave Up
Eraser
Right Where It Belongs
Beside You In Time
You Know What You Are
Sin
Only
Not So Pretty Now
Deep
Reptile
****
Down In It
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole

T.B.

og

That setlist sounds good, I hope they play "Burn" when they goto Orlando

millhaven

But its oh-so prestigious. You should be thankful to be in such a
hallowed venue even if you can't see or hear a thing. After all, the
Beatles played there. If its good enough for them, its good enough for you.

I took the bus. Even when going in a car, we park in one of the public
lots down on Hollywood Bl and hoof it up.

This was the first time I was ever close enough to see the boxes.
Didn't look very comfortable. I think they were built for children when
the Beatles played there.

Glad I missed it. I saw them back when they were called Kyuss. Didn't
impress me then and not any better now.


I was surprised to see a human. After hiring the infamous exploding
drummer I thought he would just switch back to a drum machine like on the first tour.


I am getting too old for that. One or two of the nights at Universal in
94 was super mellow.


It looked better in 94. Better songs and video.


Nah, nothing different here than The Downward Spiral tour, only then he
was pushing a new album, now it seems like he is pushing the same album
with a few new songs I didn't recognize.


How about just skip like when he didnt do Head Like A Hole in 95.
Totally played out song that should be retired for a few tours.

I dont think they have been doing encores at all this tour. Then again
I don't think the crowd deserved one.


Yeah, it was more like going to see your favorite classic rock band at
the LA County Fair. Good songs and all that, but not really all that
exciting. It was nice to hear Burn and Eraser though.

indiie

Josh is the only member that is currently in QOTSA that used to be in Kyuss.
Two quite different bands. Like comparing Foo Fighters to Nirvana.