Soundgarden X nine inch nails X Hollywood Bowl: August 25, 2014

Lumia 925 - Hollywood Bowl marquee

Got free parking at the Metro in North Hollywood.  Paid less than a dollar for in Metro fares to get to Hollywood and Highland.  Broke a bit of a sweat getting up to the Bowl.  Stopped halfway at a cowboy sports bar for an Adios.  Wait a second, why is there a cowboy sports bar in the middle of Hollywood?  Stopped again at a small park next to the Hollywood Bowl entrance to empty my backpack of alcohol. In hindsight, I probably could have left my single serve alcohol bottles in my bag.


Lumia 925 - Hollywood Bowl at sunset

It was about 7:20 when I got to the gates, so I missed the opener Cold Cave.
It was really crowded trying to get in.  Lines for everything and people just standing in the middle of a crowd made navigation difficult.


Nokia 808 - Soundgarden

I decided to buy a tour shirt and hope I'd be done before Soundgarden started up.  The credit card machines were malfunctioning but I got lucky when it was my turn to pay. 
I went to find my seats and found I was in a 4 seated box.  This was really cool.  The last two times I was at the Bowl, I was stuck on a bench.  I didn't find out until afterwards I had a table to use as well.  The Bowl has hi-def monitors on each side of the stage and a few more for people in the middle and nosebleed sections.  I think those were new since my last visit.  One more note about the Bowl, the men's bathroom is stacked with urinals.  The line may seem long but it moves fast.


Nokia 808 - Soundgarden - Spoonman

Soundgarden played a shorter set compared to when I saw them in Vegas.  They started about 10 minutes later than the set times I saw posted on twitter.  Chris Cornell said it had been a lifelong dream to play the Bowl since he saw it on the Brady Bunch.  He also talked about how nice it must be for the people who lived at the top of the hill to get to watch shows all the time.  He then complained about how the whole show needed to be finished by 11PM.


Nokia 808 - Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun

The band's show was a bit different from Vegas.  Aside from being shorter, they didn't have a curtain drop to kick off the show.  At the end of the show, the band left one by one.  Guitarist Kim Thayil walked to the left side of the stage, picked up a beer, raised it to the crowd and walked to the other side of the stage.  When he got to the other side, he poured it out on the stage.  That was strange.


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails - 1000000


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails

nine inch nails put on a great show as usual.  The setlist was almost the same as the last time I saw them.  Sanctified sounded a little different from recent past performances, but that's about it.  Although my distance from the stage was the same, it seemed smaller due to the band shells.  Unlike Vegas, the show went down without a hitch and finished with 1 minute to spare before the 11PM curfew.   


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails - Closer


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails

I was really surprised with how many bootleg t-shirt salesmen there were.  I think it was because of my path back to the Metro station that I ran into nearly everyone salesmen.  Other big shows I've been to probably had more that I never saw. 


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails - head like a hole


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails