Illuminations of an Iconoclast

22/07/00 - All tracks are now available for download!!! The VQF's have been replaced with high quality MP3's.

A very warm thank you to April at 9inchnails.net, for her generosity and use of server space. Be sure to check out her site for an overwhelming resource on NIN related material.

Gavin Banns : brixton_nin@hotmail.com

After an ear-bashing from Atari Teenage Riot, we were greeted with this atmospheric breather from Trent, paving the way for Somewhat Damaged.
[note: one month since the gig, I have discovered the Intro. music is actually a variation of a track called 'The New Flesh'.]

What better way to open than playing the first track from the new album. The volume was intense, but the clarity of sound was incredible! Trent came onto stage with a guitar and opens up with the starting riff.

No sooner are we into the new material, then we are sent back to the era of Pretty Hate Machine. This songs hasn't aged at all! Trent finishes by saying, "you promised me".

Sticking with the Pretty Hate Machine album, here is Sin. The strange noises emanating at beginning and the middle of the song seemed to be coming from a band member playing one of those cool futuristic instruments (theremin); the one where you move your hands through the air to generate different noises.

Starts with Trent saying, "Ohhhh, all you f*&king pigs." The sound is slightly muffled at the beginning, but clears up after about 45 seconds into the song. The song leads into "All the pigs are all lined up" and finishes with Reznor saying "You f*&king pig.... hey .... hey...." and then we're introduced to Piggy!

Trent's vocals are incredible crisp in this recording. There's a slightly different harmony in the vocals than the original, just after 3 minutes into the song. The terrible discordant "singing" near the end are miserable (but funny) attempts from the audience!

Reznor takes the centre of the stage, and in a non-abusive fashion, plays us the tranquil prelude to The Wretched. The crowd presence is noticeable throughout all the recordings, but particularly with this one due to the quiet dynamics.

The EQ on my recording is perhaps a little on the high side (a criticism of all these recordings), due to my CHEAP microphone, but its not too bad considering. When the Wretched opened up, the venue shook. The backing vocalist sounds like he's losing it slightly towards the end!

Live, this song really stood out, unfortunately the recording hasn't captured its full glory, it sounds slightly muffled (I think the microphone may have been repositioning at this point.)

The Broken album works very well live, probably because it is more guitar orientated. The bassist and guitarist joined in for the backing vocals. Damn I love this song! Both guitarists sing on this.

The band played behind a translucent silk screen as we were awed by this amazing projection of images (mainly of the sea strangely enough!), it was amazing to watch. If I remember correctly the silk screen and projections were kept up until we reached Wish. The lead melody sounds a little keyboard like, but it is guitar. The vocals are not present in this live version, but we do have some nice screaming guitar at the end unlike the original.

What can I say?! This song is so powerful, it sends a shiver down my spine every time I hear it; the recording has captured it pretty well. There's some nice vocal harmonising from the guitarist in this track.

Another very moving piece, and its recorded pretty well. Trent's whispering 'all I've undergone I will keep on' is quite audible over the music.

Again, with regrets, some of the beginning is lost, fortunately its not too much and all the vocals are present.

The panning is a little screwed for the first few seconds, but fortunately it improves the microphone's reception compared to Reptile. I like the vocal harmony's on this one too, I must say, the guitarist seems to have a good voice.

The guitarist does a lot of vocal work in the chorus, and sings solo for a while as well. This is the last song in the set list before the encore and ends with a strange siren sound before the audience begin chanting, "Nine Inch Nails".

I'm a tyro when it comes to recording, and with this being my first one I was expecting disastrous results. During the break between track 17 and 18, I changed the mic input settings which was a big, BIG mistake!! The recording I have is very quiet and barely audible, so what I have done is to normalise the volume and use a little bit of compression; the overall volume is a lot better for it, but it does compromise the quality slightly producing a small ambient hiss. Still, considering, its really not too bad and the sound is still very crisp and clear!

If the slight hiss was missing, I think this would be an excellent recording, I'm kicking myself for messing up the mic input! I can't change the past and don't lament too much for this is still a good recording and an excellent song.

Who could not love this song, it's a work of genius! The masterpiece compliments the previous song well as one of the great aggressive sing-along tracks. Towards the end there's some more obvious new sounds mixed into the song, including synthesizer, guitar and vocals.

Trent introduces the songs saying, "It's nice to be back after being gone for so long, this is one of my favourite songs." The crowd claps along to the verse. Again there are some nice harmonies from the guitarist that feature extensively throughout the song. Once the song finished the Nine Inch Nail members walk off the stage leaving their equipment in tact!