A U C K L A N D 2 1 . 1 . 0 0
C O N C E R T R E V I E W S
Review thanks to 'The Spy In The Sky Above The Shimmering Suburban Desert'
"isn't that really what you wanted now?"
The first Big Day Out in Auckland on January 21, 2000 was also the first show for Nine Inch Nails in Auckland. NIN occupied the 8-9.15pm slot, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers following. The BDO in Auckland sold out for the first time in history with some 45-47,000 people in attendence. Which was just way too many. There was not one facility that did not have a mile long queue and moving around in the main stadium where the 2 main stages were was bad enough. If you had of been wanting to see other bands on other stages you would have been highly pissed off at the time it would have taken to move between stages.
I moved over to the front of the stage NIN were on at about 7pm, and waited probably one of the longest hours in my life while listening to the Foo Fighters on the other main stage, who I must say, were very catchy and quite enjoyable. There was a large number of fellow Ninnies waiting and watching the road crew set up and generally getting excited. When the Foos finished everyone started roaring and pretty much straight away the dry ice machine started up, the lights flashed and first NiN member onstage was Jerome, quickly followed by the rest. They assembled battle positions, Trent jumped around the stage and they then plunged into Head Like A Hole, which was quite surprising. Only problem was Trent's microphone decided not to work on the first line. He was grinning as he picked that one up and heaved it away behind him. (no injuries) He ran over to Robin's mic and the show went on. At this stage I was a few rows from the front and as I'm only 5'6 I couldn't see very much at all. I spent most of the gig 'moving' back and forth trying to get a better viewing spot among the seething crowd, to no avail. The main problem with the show had nothing to do with NIN, rather the crowd. There were a lot of aggressive, stupid males up the front who'd obviously gone up purely to 'mosh and go sick' knowing that NiN audiences were pretty wild. These people of course were all a lot taller than me and spent most the gig pushing shoving and generally trying to slam dance when there was just no point. There were also a lot of people up there for the hell of it. You noticed these people during songs like Get Down Make Love, as not many people knew it at all, and during some 'softer' songs off The Fragile. I cannot remember the setlist in order though it went something like this: Head Like A Hole, Terrible Lie, Sin, Piggy, March Of The Pigs, The Frail, The Wretched, Gave Up, Into The Void, Get Down Make Love, No You Don't, Even Deeper, Wish, Closer, Starfuckers Inc and Hurt. For a festival an hour and fifteen minutes onstage is pretty good. The band all looked really really into it and like they were really enjoying themselves. Trent had that grinning look in his eyes most of the night and I saw Charlie smiling as well. Trent didn't speak until some way through the set. He basically commented on how playing festivals was quite strange for them, and thanked us all for hanging around all day to see them. Jerome was pounding away at his kit like it was his last gig ever. Before the last song Hurt, Trent did the usual announcement about it being their last and favourite song, and told everyone to stick around for the Chili Peppers. Technically it was a near perfect show, no problems at all that I noticed except for the aforementioned mic. Trent's vocals were slightly muffled during a song or two though I think that was more to do with him rather than the sound. As I was expecting there was no drop down screen and therefore no The Way Out Is Through, The Great Below or La Mer. It got reasonably dark during the last part of their set which helped the lighting stand out though the use of dry ice previously added effect. Yes, they were covered in cornstarch or something similar and they all appeared to be in the same/similar outfits. I would have to say Nine Inch Nails would have to be one of the best bands to play Big Day Out ever, both musically and theatrically wise, and I'm looking forward to the Melbourne BDO on Sunday.
tomorrow belongs to me