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

Las Vegas: Soundgarden X nine inch nails at The Axis at Planet Hollywood powered by Monster, July 19, 2014

Okay, first let's talk about about that ridiculous venue name.  The first time I went there, it was the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts where I saw Boingo.  A few years ago, I saw nine inch nails play there and it was called the Planet Hollywood Theater for the Performing Arts.  Now it has a fully corporate sponsored name.  Blah.

So anyway, this was a fun weekend, but mediocre show.  Had a nice dinner at Gordon Ramsey's BurGR before the show.  The line to pick up tickets was a bit long, but no big deal.

Oneohtrix Point Never was a strange opener.  There was one guy behind a DJ station.  The performance felt like something out of an abstract art gallery.  Lots of slow build up to nothing.


Nokia 808 - Oneohtrix Point Never

I went to the merch booth to pick up a new keychain.  Soundgarden started up before I could get back to my seat.  It was a bit strange, since their bassist was in the crowd for the first song and slowly made his way to the stage.  I guessed right that they would play Spoonman as their second song and tried to record it, but the girl in front of me was both too tall and liked to dance so I never had a good shot.  Because it's the 20th anniversary of Superunknown, their set was heavy in songs from that album.  I enjoyed the simple imagery of an eclipse used for those songs.  At one point, lead singer Chris Cornell stopped to talk about how when they formed the band, the world was bleak and things sucked.  He said pop and modern music is fine and all, but the world aint any different.  I really enjoyed their performance, even though they didn't play one song I wanted to hear, Been Away Too Long.


Nokia 808 - Soundgarden

I probably would have enjoyed the show more if I wasn't stuck in a shit sandwich.  I had to manuever a lot to look around dancing of the tall girl in front of me. It got worse when she switched with her even taller boyfriend.  Behind me were an incredibly obnoxious couple.  Every time a singer would say thank you, she would yell "NO THANK YOU!" or "I LOVE YOU!" Her boyfriend was dancing a lot as well and often bumped into my friend.  Vegas being what it is, I noticed a group of four leave halfway into Soundgarden's set two rows up.  It wasn't until halfway into nine inch nails' set that me and my friend moved up to their empty seats.  The show was much nicer at that point.



Nokia 808 - Trent Reznor

  I was pretty impressed with the stage crew.  They tore down and removed Soundgarden's stage in about 5 minutes.  After about 20 minutes, a stagehand put out a lamp on the stage and a small music device on a podium.  5 minutes later, with the house lights still on, Trent Reznor casually walked out on stage and started the show.  Eventually the three other members of the band made their way on stage and the lights went down and the stage formed.  






Nokia 808 - nine inch nails

The performance was riddled with faults. Lots of the stage effects were malfunctioning. Robin Finck's guitar would crap out and he threw it away in disgust.  Trent would later say, "Hey its the first show, things are bound to go wrong."  In the past, he would have thrown a tantrum and broken instruments or parts of the stage.  Musically, it was very interesting to me since a few songs were done without live drums or different instrumentation than past shows.


Nokia 808 - nine inch nails

After the show I went to the Cosmopolitan in search of a proper Mint Julep.  I was told to go to, the Chandelier Bar, but they didn't have the cups to serve one in.  I walked down to Caesar's Palace to visit the Forum Shops, but it was closed.  With that, the night ended.

Sunday I returned to the Forum Shops to find Max Brenners had closed.  Afterwards I headed to the pinball museum and blew some quarters.  The day concluded with playing my DC Deck Builder game.  Here's a tip, if you're driving from LA to Vegas, stay until Monday morning.  The Sunday afternoon drive is always a nightmare.  The Monday morning drive back was a breeze.

Backblog: nine inch nails at Jimmy Kimmel Live 11/7/2014

This post has been sitting in draft as I have been attending my tumblr blog.  Since I am seeing nine inch nails tonight in Las Vegas, I thought it would be a good time to push this out.


Nokia 808 Pureview

It was November 7, 2014.  I got off the subway in Hollywood around 1:30PM and was 8th in line.  I was expecting cooler weather and wore black but it was very sunny and warm.  Spent the next few hours chatting with people in line while waiting for my friends to show up.  Learned a lot of info that would come in handy for tomorrow's show at Staples Center.


Nokia 808 Pureview

After they showed up, sound check started.  They played a small bit of 1000000.  They played All The Love In The World, which they had just debuted a couple of days ago.  I would have shot some video, but a trailer truck was in the way.  It sounded great with the back up singers.  They did Various Methods of Escape multiple times, which ended up being broadcasted.


Nokia 808 Pureview

By now wristbands were being given out and now there were 20-30 people in front of me.  After moving to the priority line, All Time Low was sound checked.  I recorded this, but there's so much talking going on I didn't bother to upload.


Nokia 808 Pureview

After being let in, everyone took a spot behind a yellow tape.  After the security guy gave the signal, he dropped the line and everyone moved to the front of the stage.  While my friend made it to the front and secured a spot on the rail for me, some girl ran across from my left to my right and got a spot as well.  The security guy yelled at my friend for getting in front of him.  Nothing made any sense and I was incredibly worried she was going to get thrown out.  She got off with just a warning.  Right before the show she scored a poster so everything balanced out for her.  The girl who cut me off decided to give up her spot and my other friend took her place.

For her troubles, my friend scored a nice poster for the night's show.  nine inch nails opened with Various Methods of Escape and followed with All Time Low.  I took a bunch of photos.  These songs used to be up on youtube, but they're private now. Then the cameras went away and I switched to video mode as they played Sanctified, Came Back Haunted and The Hand That Feeds.  Enjoy my videos from the show.


Nokia 808 Pureview


Nokia 808 Pureview


Nokia 808 Pureview

nine inch nails at Irvine Meadows 5/20/09

nine inch nails live at the Planet Hollywood Theater, Las Vegas, 12/13/2008

pinion, wish, terrible lie, survivalism, ghosts 31, only, the hand that feeds, head like a hole

nine inch nails live at the Forum, Inglewood, CA 9/6/08 part 2

The Frail
Closer
Gave Up

nine inch nails live at the Forum, Inglewood, CA 9/6/08

1000000
Letting You
March of the Pigs
Head Down