ETS Tour Journal

Post if you attended the show.

Setlist:

Home
Terrible Lie
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Metal
Reptile
The Becoming
I'm Afraid of Americans
Burn
Gave Up
La Mer
Fragile
Non-Entity
Gone, Still
The Way Out Is Through
Wish
Mr. Self Destruct
Survivalism
The Hand that Feeds
Head Like A Hole
Hurt



Sadly I chickened out and did not bring my camera, which was a shame since the security guys didn't seem to mind the dozens of cameras that were clearly visible during the concert. But, since this was the first (and probably last) time I got to see NIN live, I wasn't willing to risk anything spoiling my fun. Oh well...I did get some photos and videos from a friend's phone-cam, but the quality isn't much, especially considering the top quality videos that have surfaced in this tour. I'll post some when I have the chance.

And now for impressions...I didn't really know anything about Jane's Addiction, but now that I listened to them, I am definetely going to check out their albums. They were fun to watch and a little crazy.

As for the much anticipated stars of the evening: Man! Wow! I mean, NIN played for nearly two hours and I could just listen to them for two more (or forever, for that matter)! It was magic. It was unreal. It was everything I expected. It really hit me in the very end what I've been missing all these years, what I probably won't be seeing ever again and how lucky I was that I at least got to see them this one time.

As for the rapport between Trent and audience, I guess it was satisfying, though I don't have much experience about that. I was a little worried about it, since I have the feeling that the majority of Greek NIN fans mostly stick to the heavier and thrashier tracks and wouldn't care for the quieter ones, but it all went smoothly. There was an awful lot of chatter during Gone, Still though, and during Hurt there was the occasional scream and whistle (and an unfortunate out-of-rhythm clapping), but luckily it was not persistent. I was a little let down that the show ended abruptly after Hurt and there was no encore, because there definetely was room for one more song. Then again, it could just be the greedy fanboy in me talking...

The weather was perfect, breezy and not too hot and the sound was solid. The setting was beautiful and just large enough to accommodate the audience.

All in all, an immaculate experience for me. Thank you Trent and I hope you had fun too!

It was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I was waiting for this day for many years and I wasn't disappointed one bit.

Here's my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/savagestar/
and my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/savagestar711

I still have lots of videos to upload.

It's Tuesday, 02:00 AM. Monday's gone, and so is the show. My father and I are coping with an unbearably low temperature and a shitty air conditioning system in some hotel room. Trent's words keep echoing in my ears:

"Thank you. After twenty whole years, we're finally here. Thank you very much."

The gates are open by the time my buddy and I arrive at the Vrahon Theatre. I see many people wearing NIN T-shirts. Some of them are the official Wave Goodbye tour ones. Others are bootlegs. Others were bought from a booth providing shirts in various colors and the NIN logo in various sizes. Some dudes wear AIR shirts. Some wear Tool or A Perfect Circle shirts. Can't see anyone wearing an Alec Empire or Jane's Addiction one.

As for me, I wear a custom-made shirt featuring designs I made myself; the front has the AIR logo (taken directly from the YZ wallpapers), the words "another version of the truth" on top of it and "THISONEISONUS.ORG" below it. Yeah, say it, I'm a cheap-ass, and I should have bought one of the "official" TOIOU shirts instead. But I wanted this T-shirt to match the events of that specific day, since, on the back, I put the NIN and JA logos, Alec's name in a Year Zero-like font and the concert's date written as 20 . 07 . 09 (shut up, we Greeks write our dates backwards). Thus, the shirt now stands as a piece of memorabilia on its own.

We step in to Alec's pounding beats. Great. I loves me some powerful bass in my music. Many visitors complained about the amount of bass Alec used, but I wished it had more. Yeah, I'm weird. Wearing one of his signature short-sleeved black shirts and huge sunglasses, the skilled DJ switched between several dark industrial beats, with considerable ease and attitude. At some point, he did the "palm-below-ear" gesture; as if his right ear couldn't pick up the cheering of twenty people. Yes, there were more than a hundred people at the time, and few seemed to actually care about what Alec was up to.

And that was it.

And to think, I had listened to three AE albums that day to prepare myself (or, to be precise, two-and-a-half: The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, Futurist, and the first disc of Intelligence and Sacrifice). Plus, I'm an Atari Teenage Riot fan. Given the electro-rock aesthetic of The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, I expected a band to perform with him, or, at least, some (digital) hardcore vocals by the man himself. Nada. He just waved his hand at us and left. I hope that wasn't also his own wave goodbye. Don't get me wrong, I loved what he did, but it was too little considering the man's amount of work and the various genres of electronic music he has tackled with (or created).

Three minutes later, Alec is back on stage. What the hell? He chats with some guys, while "Turnin' On The Screw" by Queens of the Stone Age pops up. Then he disappears, while the technicians check out the guitar, bass and vocal amplifiers, and somebody pulls a sheet off a drum kit. With two bass drums. The crowd screams. I take a closer look. The left bass drum reads "Jane's". The other shouts "ADDICTION".

And lo, Perry and his gang are on stage, blasting off with "Up The Beach". Sporting black leather slacks and a semi-transparent black jacket, Perry struts around the stage before we even know he's up there. "Whores" is badass, as usual. "Ain't No Right" could use a bit more volume on the guitar, but Eric's bass never sounded more lively. "Three Days" is jaw-dropping, as it should, though "Then She Did" didn't follow. Then, Perry decides to begin babbling about the Greek Gods, some women that climbed on top of a hill and wanted sex, him wanting to lick the pussy of a godess, and them loving sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. And ouzo. He probably drank great amounts of it before going on stage. Believe me, it showed. Other Perry-isms included (please correct me if I misquoted something):

"I love Greece, and I love stealing!" (before "Been Caught Stealing")
"Athenaaaaaa"!
"We've been playing for centuries!"
"I've read about the history of your country. When Greece was about to be attacked by the Nazis, one man wrapped the flag of your country around himself, and stood until his death, instead of being a fucking Nazi. I would do the same fucking thing. Because I hate the fucking Nazis. And I love the fucking Greek (sic)!"

There was something to spot on every band member. Eric's sneakers had fluorescent green shoelaces, which were visible even when he was bathed in blue light and clouds of smoke. Dave wore a hat matched his nipples and tatoos perfectly. And I have no idea what Stephen wore.

If I have any complaints from JA's performance, it's the way they played "Been Caught Stealing". It sounded a bit hollow and out of place. Too bad, since it was the song that, like many of us, introduced me to Jane's Addiction in the first place. Still, it could be much worse, and I'm glad I finally heard that song being performed live. The rest of the songs were flawlessly delivered, and the finale ("Jane Says" with Dave and Eric on acoustic guitars and Stephen on keyboards) was splendid.

Thirty minutes of playback music (I think I caught Coil's "Backwards" from The New Backwards at some point), strobe lights, technicians hopping around the stage and moving this and that later, the time arrives. I look at the arena. Where did all these people come from? Turns out, 60% of the audience didn't care about Alec or JA at all.

The opening synth line of "Home" fills the stage.

I scream. I hop. I put my hands up. I bang my head. I clap.

On. Every. Single. Damn. Song.

The standing crowd is divided in two parts: on the left, the "supportive ones", who would also put their hands up and scream on every song; on the right, the "not-so-willing-to-show-their-support-(if-any)" ones. I was unable to join the "supportives", since the arena was full, and all the seats were taken (during the previous acts, they had plenty of empty space for you to sit on). So, as a part of the "just standing there" crowd, I stand my own ground, enjoying every second of every song performed with my own way.

Did I say that JA's performances were nearly flawless? The Nails were goddamn perfect. Not a single technical flaw. Not a single note wasted. Not a single fuck-up in Trent's vocals. His singing was astounding, and put every live footage I've seen to bed. Justin and Robin nailed (sic) their guitars with precision and passion. If you haven't seen Robin's dreadlocks swirling while he performs MOTP, you've seen nothing. Ilan is quite something. While Josh's style seemed to do little more than just loyally serve the band's sound as a whole, the child prodigy's energetic and flexible drumming stood on its own. And he's just one year younger than me! What the fuck have I done with my life?

Speaking of me, during the 2007 European summer tour, I had seen a video on YouTube showing a NIN fan dancing along to the music, and everybody else standing still. For the first half of the concert, pretty much the same thing happened to me; I was a jumper among statues. During Reptile, I accidentally hit a lady with my elbow. She screams, "what the hell's he doing, is he crazy"? Fortunately, no harm was done, and I apologized to her after the song was over. So, if you were right there, standing and enjoying the show, and suddenly some crazy dude with a T-shirt with logos all over it and his hair stuck all over his face ruined your experience, it was me. By the way, this photo looks like it was taken from behind the stage crowd, so there is a possibility that Rob spotted my crazy ass twisting around itself at some point.

"It's a good day", Trent says, "it's not raining"...

The last three songs had the entire audience jumping and screaming. Gee, I wonder why. Something ugly happened during Hurt, however. When the first verse ended and Robin began the riff, the crowd's clapping was out of sync (just like Alexandros pointed out in his post). Robin seemed a bit displeased with that, I could see it in his eyes. But when it all ended, anything ugly was erased from my mind and heart. All that was there was the beauty of having seen your favorite band in the universe perform in front of your eyes. A dream came true.

I don't know if anyone has discussed this before, but some of the songs seemed to be played in slightly lower tempos than before. I spotted that on Wish, HLAH, Reptile and MOTP. Not that I complain; in fact, it makes the songs longer, right? And yes, I agree with some ETS users that Mr. Self Destruct sounds somewhat shallow now that the second guitar (played by Alessandro in the 2007 tour) is absent, but the excellent sampled thuds, the frenetic beats, Robin's riffing and the lower key performance made this more brutal than the studio version. In my close-to-humble opinion.

The last minute of Monday is over and my buddy and I are among the crowd. Everyone is leaving nice and quietly. No noise, no punches, no kicking or screaming. A pleasant surprise. Time to make my move: I open my mouth and shout at the top of my lungs:

"THISONEISONUS.ORG!!! FAN-MADE NINE INCH NAILS DVD!!! SUPPORT US!!!"

And nobody gave a shit, even the third time I shouted it. Their loss. Hey, stop it, I had to do it. I'm the goddamn Greek translator, for Pete's sake. I translate everything TOIOU-related in Greek when I get the chance. I'm responsible for the subtitles. And I will show my support with every way I can.

What saddens me the most is that this day will eventually be forgotten by most people outside of Greece. And some Greeks, too, I believe. There was nothing special enough to be filmed by Rob and his HD camera. Camcording was prohibited, so most of the footage that will surface (and some of it already has) will probably be low-to-medium quality clips. I doubt anyone with high-quality material will send anything to the live archive Reflecting In The Chrome, but there's always a possibility.

It's Tuesday, 11:24 p.m., typing what you're reading right now. If the future allows us to go back in time and relive the experiences of the past, I'll always be re-winding and fast-forwarding to July 20th, 2009; the most exciting day of my life.

Thank you for reading this journal. In a couple of weeks, it will be buried under the future journals and few will remember it. Who cares for a silly boy's opinion when the sight of a band you love is imprinted in your head? And it is still inside you? And it is still inside you...

...and they are still inside us.

A nicely written article (in Greek), along with excellent, though watermarked, pictures by Chris Kissadjekian, can be found here: http://www.rocking.gr/article6155.php

Fuck! My cookies were deleted somehow and I'm written as a Guest above. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It's Tuesday, 02:00 AM. Monday's gone, and so is the show. My father and I are coping with an unbearably low temperature and a shitty air conditioning system in some hotel room. Trent's words keep echoing in my ears:

"Thank you. After twenty whole years, we're finally here. Thank you very much."

The gates are open by the time my buddy and I arrive at the Vrahon Theatre. I see many people wearing NIN T-shirts. Some of them are the official Wave Goodbye tour ones. Others are bootlegs. Others were bought from a booth providing shirts in various colors and the NIN logo in various sizes. Some dudes wear AIR shirts. Some wear Tool or A Perfect Circle shirts. Can't see anyone wearing an Alec Empire or Jane's Addiction one.

As for me, I wear a custom-made shirt featuring designs I made myself; the front has the AIR logo (taken directly from the YZ wallpapers), the words "another version of the truth" on top of it and "THISONEISONUS.ORG" below it. Yeah, say it, I'm a cheap-ass, and I should have bought one of the "official" TOIOU shirts instead. But I wanted this T-shirt to match the events of that specific day, since, on the back, I put the NIN and JA logos, Alec's name in a Year Zero-like font and the concert's date written as 20 . 07 . 09 (shut up, we Greeks write our dates backwards). Thus, the shirt now stands as a piece of memorabilia on its own.

We step in to Alec's pounding beats. Great. I loves me some powerful bass in my music. Many visitors complained about the amount of bass Alec used, but I wished it had more. Yeah, I'm weird. Wearing one of his signature short-sleeved black shirts and huge sunglasses, the skilled DJ switched between several dark industrial beats, with considerable ease and attitude. At some point, he did the "palm-below-ear" gesture; as if his right ear couldn't pick up the cheering of twenty people. Yes, there were more than a hundred people at the time, and few seemed to actually care about what Alec was up to.

And that was it.

And to think, I had listened to three AE albums that day to prepare myself (or, to be precise, two-and-a-half: The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, Futurist, and the first disc of Intelligence and Sacrifice). Plus, I'm an Atari Teenage Riot fan. Given the electro-rock aesthetic of The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, I expected a band to perform with him, or, at least, some (digital) hardcore vocals by the man himself. Nada. He just waved his hand at us and left. I hope that wasn't also his own wave goodbye. Don't get me wrong, I loved what he did, but it was too little considering the man's amount of work and the various genres of electronic music he has tackled with (or created).

Three minutes later, Alec is back on stage. What the hell? He chats with some guys, while "Turnin' On The Screw" by Queens of the Stone Age pops up. Then he disappears, while the technicians check out the guitar, bass and vocal amplifiers, and somebody pulls a sheet off a drum kit. With two bass drums. The crowd screams. I take a closer look. The left bass drum reads "Jane's". The other shouts "ADDICTION".

And lo, Perry and his gang are on stage, blasting off with "Up The Beach". Sporting black leather slacks and a semi-transparent black jacket, Perry struts around the stage before we even know he's up there. "Whores" is badass, as usual. "Ain't No Right" could use a bit more volume on the guitar, but Eric's bass never sounded more lively. "Three Days" is jaw-dropping, as it should, though "Then She Did" didn't follow. Then, Perry decides to begin babbling about the Greek Gods, some women that climbed on top of a hill and wanted sex, him wanting to lick the pussy of a godess, and them loving sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. And ouzo. He probably drank great amounts of it before going on stage. Believe me, it showed. Other Perry-isms included (please correct me if I misquoted something):

"I love Greece, and I love stealing!" (before "Been Caught Stealing")
"Athenaaaaaa"!
"We've been playing for centuries!"
"I've read about the history of your country. When Greece was about to be attacked by the Nazis, one man wrapped the flag of your country around himself, and stood until his death, instead of being a fucking Nazi. I would do the same fucking thing. Because I hate the fucking Nazis. And I love the fucking Greek (sic)!"

There was something to spot on every band member. Eric's sneakers had fluorescent green shoelaces, which were visible even when he was bathed in blue light and clouds of smoke. Dave wore a hat matched his nipples and tatoos perfectly. And I have no idea what Stephen wore.

If I have any complaints from JA's performance, it's the way they played "Been Caught Stealing". It sounded a bit hollow and out of place. Too bad, since it was the song that, like many of us, introduced me to Jane's Addiction in the first place. Still, it could be much worse, and I'm glad I finally heard that song being performed live. The rest of the songs were flawlessly delivered, and the finale ("Jane Says" with Dave and Eric on acoustic guitars and Stephen on keyboards) was splendid.

Thirty minutes of playback music (I think I caught Coil's "Backwards" from The New Backwards at some point), strobe lights, technicians hopping around the stage and moving this and that later, the time arrives. I look at the arena. Where did all these people come from? Turns out, 60% of the audience didn't care about Alec or JA at all.

The opening synth line of "Home" fills the stage.

I scream. I hop. I put my hands up. I bang my head. I clap.

On. Every. Single. Damn. Song.

The standing crowd is divided in two parts: on the left, the "supportive ones", who would also put their hands up and scream on every song; on the right, the "not-so-willing-to-show-their-support-(if-any)" ones. I was unable to join the "supportives", since the arena was full, and all the seats were taken (during the previous acts, they had plenty of empty space for you to sit on). So, as a part of the "just standing there" crowd, I stand my own ground, enjoying every second of every song performed with my own way.

Did I say that JA's performances were nearly flawless? The Nails were goddamn perfect. Not a single technical flaw. Not a single note wasted. Not a single fuck-up in Trent's vocals. His singing was astounding, and put every live footage I've seen to bed. Justin and Robin nailed (sic) their guitars with precision and passion. If you haven't seen Robin's dreadlocks swirling while he performs MOTP, you've seen nothing. Ilan is quite something. While Josh's style seemed to do little more than just loyally serve the band's sound as a whole, the child prodigy's energetic and flexible drumming stood on its own. And he's just one year younger than me! What the fuck have I done with my life?

Speaking of me, during the 2007 European summer tour, I had seen a video on YouTube showing a NIN fan dancing along to the music, and everybody else standing still. For the first half of the concert, pretty much the same thing happened to me; I was a jumper among statues. During Reptile, I accidentally hit a lady with my elbow. She screams, "what the hell's he doing, is he crazy"? Fortunately, no harm was done, and I apologized to her after the song was over. So, if you were right there, standing and enjoying the show, and suddenly some crazy dude with a T-shirt with logos all over it and his hair stuck all over his face ruined your experience, it was me. By the way, this photo looks like it was taken from behind the stage crowd, so there is a possibility that Rob spotted my crazy ass twisting around itself at some point.

"It's a good day", Trent says, "it's not raining"...

The last three songs had the entire audience jumping and screaming. Gee, I wonder why. Something ugly happened during Hurt, however. When the first verse ended and Robin began the riff, the crowd's clapping was out of sync (just like Alexandros pointed out in his post). Robin seemed a bit displeased with that, I could see it in his eyes. But when it all ended, anything ugly was erased from my mind and heart. All that was there was the beauty of having seen your favorite band in the universe perform in front of your eyes. A dream came true.

I don't know if anyone has discussed this before, but some of the songs seemed to be played in slightly lower tempos than before. I spotted that on Wish, HLAH, Reptile and MOTP. Not that I complain; in fact, it makes the songs longer, right? And yes, I agree with some ETS users that Mr. Self Destruct sounds somewhat shallow now that the second guitar (played by Alessandro in the 2007 tour) is absent, but the excellent sampled thuds, the frenetic beats, Robin's riffing and the lower key performance made this more brutal than the studio version. In my close-to-humble opinion.

The last minute of Monday is over and my buddy and I are among the crowd. Everyone is leaving nice and quietly. No noise, no punches, no kicking or screaming. A pleasant surprise. Time to make my move: I open my mouth and shout at the top of my lungs:

"THISONEISONUS.ORG!!! FAN-MADE NINE INCH NAILS DVD!!! SUPPORT US!!!"

And nobody gave a shit, even the third time I shouted it. Their loss. Hey, stop it, I had to do it. I'm the goddamn Greek translator, for Pete's sake. I translate everything TOIOU-related in Greek when I get the chance. I'm responsible for the subtitles. And I will show my support with every way I can.

What saddens me the most is that this day will eventually be forgotten by most people outside of Greece. And some Greeks, too, I believe. There was nothing special enough to be filmed by Rob and his HD camera. Camcording was prohibited, so most of the footage that will surface (and some of it already has) will probably be low-to-medium quality clips. I doubt anyone with high-quality material will send anything to the live archive Reflecting In The Chrome, but there's always a possibility.

It's Tuesday, 11:24 p.m., typing what you're reading right now. If the future allows us to go back in time and relive the experiences of the past, I'll always be re-winding and fast-forwarding to July 20th, 2009; the most exciting day of my life.

Thank you for reading this journal. In a couple of weeks, it will be buried under the future journals and few will remember it. Who cares for a silly boy's opinion when the sight of a band you love is imprinted in your head? And it is still inside you? And it is still inside you...

...and they are still inside us.

A nicely written article (in Greek), along with excellent, though watermarked, pictures by Chris Kissadjekian, can be found here: http://www.rocking.gr/article6155.php

Well said, wizfan!

@masquerade: Keep those videos coming! (Πες μου ότι πήρες όλη τη συναυλία!)


Some shitty pics:





And four low quality phone-cam videos. For some reason, La Mer is lower quality than the other three.

I'm Afraid of Americans
March of the Pigs
La Mer
Head Like a Hole

Hehe! Σχεδόν!

Excellent pictures of the concert by photographer Anna Kweskin at the link below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/gigsnaps

102 JA pics, 98 NIN pics. More than enough!

I'm looking for Ashley who was at this show with me. Ashley, if you can read this PM me at nin.com