NIN 2008 = Best Concert

I’ve been a fan of Nine Inch Nails since the first time I heard the song The Hand That Feeds on the trailer for Underworld: Evolution. It was instant love! That was back in 2006 and since then I’ve bought every single of their albums and fallen in love with all of them. This is the band who has the most albums in my top 20 favorite albums of all time. How many exactly? 4 albums: The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, Year Zero and Ghosts I-IV. (Hhmmm maybe I should do like a countdown post of my top 20 favorite albums of all time? But anyway moving on).

In 2008 I found out that they were coming to Edmonton, Alberta, which is a city that is 4 hours from where I used to live. I instantly bought the tickets for me and my girlfriend (she is a fan too). The concert was going to take place on July the 28th, but unfortunately I broke my ankle on the first week of July playing volleyball in the stupidest way possible. The doctors put a… shit I can’t remember what it’s called, that thing they put on your feet so that the bones get fix and shit, you know? I was in crutches! Anyway, this kinda screwed up things for me and I felt so stupid. I mean, how could his happen to me 3 weeks before I was to go see my favorite band of all time? So stupid. But I said fuck it! I’m going with crutches, this damn broken foot ain’t going to ruin this for me.

Thank god my girlfriend went with me, otherwise it would’ve been a pain in the ass. So we get there, go to our seats and start waiting… The opening act was a band that I would later fall in love with called Crystal Castles. Amazing dark-electro music! That chick went crazy on stage, banging the microphone on her head, raping the floor, blowing the microphone, everything. Some people were like what the fuck is this? But I dug it a lot and it was a cool way to start the night.

After Crystal Castles ended their set, we waited for 20 minutes and then… Nine Inch Nails came on!! This was the first concert I had ever been to, which is kinda sad considering that I was 17 at the time. But let me tell you, they fucking blew my mind! Every expectation that I had was crushed, stepped on and just like completely annihilated by utter awesomeness. Being at that concert was one of the best experiences of my life and a definite high point. And I was so close to Trent Reznor (the vocalist) that I could see and smell his sweat! Yeah, that is kinda weird but I loved it. This is a guy who I really, really admire and have enormous respect for. He is a musical genius! And Y=you would think that since I had a broken foot I didn’t really jump and stuff, and you would be totally wrong. I didn’t give a crap about my foot, it did hurt like crazy the day after but I didn’t really care.

The concert was called Lights In the Sky and it was EPIC. All of the types of lights they used were different for each song and completely awe-inspiring. I’m talking about a really amazing and unmatchable concert experience, this pics don’t even touch upon the concert’s overall feel. From the beginning of the concert there was this lady behind me that kept telling me to sit down, the third time she told me I turned around and said: “go fuck yourself you fuckin’ cunt don’t you see I’m fuckin’ handicapped?!” She didn’t say anything else after. Who was she to tell me to sit down? I payed for my ticket, I’m going to do whatever the hell I pleased. It was also really funny, because there was this dude who was so hiiiigh! He kept dancing super slow for every single song, even the ones who were like full on super up-beat. That dude was in his own world and totally zen; I must say I was a bit jealous.

All of the songs they played were amazing and I really liked it when they played the songs from the Ghost I-IV album (they are all instrumental tracks). We were all in like a complete trance. That pic above is from when they were playing one of this instrumental tracks. My girlfriend got a bit bored halfway through, because she only knew 5 songs, which kinda sucked for her. Don’t get me wrong, I wished that she would’ve enjoyed it more, but I was in my own world throughout this whole concert. I enjoyed the fuck out of it, literally. It was also super cool when Trent Reznor started talking with us, and he talked for like 10 minutes telling us about the new album and just his overall state of mind. It was amazing! I jizzed in my pants (not really, but you get the idea).

When he sung the song Hurt, the whole crowd started singing along and to be honest, I got teary eyed. Ironically enough, even though the song is extremely sad I was so happy at that moment. It felt like rebirth, epic sex, being high, drunk, all the above! I think I had a smile on for 2 whole months after the concert. I was such in a good place that literally nothing could’ve brought me down, nothing. I’ve been to other concerts after that one and none of them have come close to what Nine Inch Nails did with Lights In The Sky. I don’t think any concert could ever top this one and I’m really happy with that.

PS. I’m sorry for the overlong post, I actually kinda cut a lot of things I wanted to say. Trust me, this would’ve taken at least 5 pages, maybe more. But I hoped I didn’t bored you too much.