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ETS Tour Journal

2009/07/09 - Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg [Rockhal]

13 Posts
2009-07-09 Show date
Rockhal Venue
Knight Aspirant
Too tired for 2 full review. Heavy set starting with wish and last. Sinch good soldier and dead souls were played. Non entity la mer etc. Crowd were more energetic. Rockhal is a great venue in a surprisingly good location. Very low barrier-underbust height on me. It was bearable but i must have looked worse as got my own personal security guard with free sprite. Again, band members very interesting-so much going on, not enough time to watch!
Master of the Ninth Arch
I'm fucked up as well by this. Amazing gig, quiet different to the last time I saw them (on the Year Zero tour)... NIN-User with iPhones annoyed the living hell out of me. Setlist was well balanced and quiet a tour de force, personal favorites being "Burn" (a song I don't even really like, but this was mindblowing), The Downward Spiral and the new kraftwerkesque version of Mr Self-Destruct. Loved the lightshow.

Need sleep... thank you Luxembourger, you're amazing hosts!
Maybe some mistakes

Pinion
Wish
Last
Discipline
March of the pigs... Read More
Piggy
Reptile
Burn
Gave up
La mer
Something I can never have
Non Entity
Gone/still
The Downward Spiral
Mr Self Destruct
100.000
Echoplex
Survivalism
The Good Soldier
The Day The World Went Away
Dead Souls
The Hand That Feed
Head Like A Hole
Hurt

Great show, best I ever seen I think.
Master ad Vitam
I was front positioned, so I could not archive the setlist.
Again "TDS" (awesome) and Dead Souls too.
And people, Trent and the band are "normal people": they made a mistake during "survivalism".
3 concerts in 3 days: 3 different setlist/songs, 3 different orders, 3 different approachs. That's NIN. You never get disappointed.

It was special to meet all the ETS-ers.
Grand Pontiff
Setlist posted looks right from what I remember. Outstanding show. Top 5 out of the 14 times I've seen them. Loved every minute of it.
Master of the Ninth Arch
I was just called a "cocksucker" via Twitter for seeing such an amazing setlist... he he he, I can live with that.

Biggest wins yester-night:
-Seeing "Dead Souls", "Mr. Self-Destruct", "The Downward Spiral", "Non-Entity" and "The Day the World went away" before I die.

-What I withnessed on stage was fucking professional, they played virtually non-stop, as I remember El Rezzo left the stage only once (during "Gone, Stil"), compare that with your average 40+ goth-musician that leaves every two refrains to refresh his coke-dose. The band worked well together, they had a good chemistry going on - not so much in a punk-sense like the Aaron North-lineup, but in a technical sense, you imediately got the point that these are profi-musicians doing the things they can best.

-No songs interrupted by obnoxious drunks, the audience was to familiar with NIN to make these avoidable mistakes. Heck, I even heard some people say "Shhhh!" during the quietest parts of "Something I can never have" or "Hurt".

-Reznor made a great job, he still has the stage presence of a fucking black hole. Within two or three songs, he had the audience pretty much by the balls. Although he didn't talk much (who does in Luxembourgh?), we got the point pretty quick.
I saw Finck for the first time, and I have mixed feeling about him being "the ultimate NIN-guitarist". Sure, he has badass-skills, but once or twice I wished he would stop fucking around and play the songs like... you know, the way the rest of world remembers them - I'm talking about "The Downward Spiral", that amazing guitar-part after the first break-down (2:23 on the album, when the lyrics set in). I mean, sure, he knows more about this stuff then I ever will, but come on. Don't mess with the holy cows.

-Rockhal is an amazing place for concerts, you can't help but get a NIN-vibe when you drive thowards those burned out, rusted ruins in the middle of fucking nowhere. Before the concert, we made a little walk through the area, it was a shame none of us brought a cam. Again, the audience was in a very good mood, there was no aggression, no drunken yelling... we arrived rather late (or so we thought), but even after making a little detour through teared down factories and wait during a Marihuana-induced near-death experience on the side of our trusted driver, there was virtually no line, we got amazing places (about 5 meter from the stage, on the Finck-side)... again, thank you Luxembourgh, you made up for the lame audience I had to suffer from the last time I visited your beautiful country and bought your terrifying cheap cigarettes.

So, am I amazed? Check. Did I a have a good night? Check. Was it worth the price? Fuck yes, check. Will I go there again someday? Check.

Win-Win.

(sorry for my unusal bad english, I'm still too much durch den Wind.)
Master ad Vitam
John Doe wrote:
I saw Finck for the first time, and I have mixed feeling about him being "the ultimate NIN-guitarist". Sure, he has badass-skills, but once or twice I wished he would stop fucking around and play the songs like... you know, the way the rest of world remembers them - I'm talking about "The Downward Spiral", that amazing guitar-part after the first break-down (2:23 on the album, when the lyrics set in). I mean, sure, he knows more about this stuff then I ever will, but come on. Don't mess with the holy cows.
sorry dude, but wtf are you talking about?
Knight Aspirant
icklekitty wrote:Too tired for 2 full review. Heavy set starting with wish and last. Sinch good soldier and dead souls were played. Non entity la mer etc. Crowd were more energetic. Rockhal is a great venue in a surprisingly good location. Very low barrier-underbust height on me. It was bearable but i must have looked worse as got my own personal security guard with free sprite. Again, band members very interesting-so much going on, not enough time to watch!
"too tired for 2 full review"? - i can has speak engrish please?

Also Mew were on equally good form last night - I've been a fan on record for 4 years, but their live shows are art in their own right.

I can't stress enough how fantastic the other NIN performers are on stage. I don't know if it means that previous band members were crap/lacklustre (I've seen Josh Freese play live so that can't be it, can it?) but I spent whole songs just staring at Robin do all but have sex with his guitar, or Justin dancing to songs in between his parts, or Ilan producing energy from fuck knows where. On record NIN may be Trent Reznor, but live the whole set just..ok, these tickets, by European standards are overpriced, but it's still such value for money.

My only complaint is that NIN have spoiled me for other shows. I go to gigs with such high standards now, and I am rarely satisfied enough. Yeah, fuck you NIN.
Master of the Ninth Arch
I enjoyed this show except for the fat brown pig shit smelling girl who bellowed in place of cheering who crushed, punched and kicked her way to the front at the expense of a poor girl who had come over from malasia, and the the german arseclowns who were behind us who didnt ever shut the fuck up during the quiet songs and spent their time thrusting elbows into the faces of anyone near them.
Why do crowds have to have these wankstains in them?

Awesome show, though as soon as they played Last, i was always going to be happy.
Master of the Ninth Arch
And here we go...


Piggy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSxC8G3BYs

Reptile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JMzC3TNJ1g

La Mer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e6kn-v95GU

Something I can never have
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t_lAQ2lFbg

The Day the World went away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKTjtbz64bM

Hurt
(close to stage) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjRl_0Pswrw
(far away) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyhbBEbR61w

There are also some shorter ones (1 - 2 minutes), but I didn't bother watching them. I pm'd the guy who uploaded the three higher quality-videos from the back of the crowd, but unfortunately he didn't film more - nor has he more audio records with this quality.

EDIT: Screw it, here's the rest, I'll keep it updated.

(incomplete and/or bad sound)

Discipline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1HCeOH6Z3I

March of the Pigs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3s9Vo4RL8k

Reptile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCuNknFfXDo

Non-Entity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfedhtxb7gw

Something I can never have
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmxz1qyLSQ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m1PTAlaVds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHOjjA1wUfc

Hurt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsOK95FFgGA
Werchter, Belgium was so fucking disappointing (shitty festival, shitty spot and fucking numb Metallica fans taking all the good spots) me and a friend decided to go to Luxemburg a few days later, 'cause we didn't want that shitty experience to be the last performance we saw from NIИ.

man, we did so not regret this decision. we drove 300 km's from Ghent, Belgium to Luxemburg and it was totally worth the fucking drive (and the fucking drive back - getting home at 4.30AM)!...

This was my ninth NIИ performance (huh, there's a nice coincidence) and definitely the (second) best -close call with Pukkelpop 2007- ever!

It was fucking phenomenal!!!

-p-
Bricklayer
-petri- wrote:Werchter, Belgium was so fucking disappointing (shitty festival, shitty spot and fucking numb Metallica fans taking all the good spots) me and a friend decided to go to Luxemburg a few days later, 'cause we didn't want that shitty experience to be the last performance we saw from NIИ.


The Luxembourg show was obviously better than Werchter, but you can't really compare an 1h long set in the daylight stuck between the Black Eyed Peas and Metallica, to a full NIN only 2h show. I appreciated both, with a chatty, relaxed Trent in Werchter, playing all the hits, and a almost comprehensive setlist in Luxembourg. I'ld say this one have been one of the best NIN show I've been to, along with Pukkelpop 07. Sadly, there will be no other to compare with :(