You know what you are?
Semi-geeks and full moons at Nine Inch Nails
Sun., May 22 - How many Trents does it take to rock a show? Based on Nine Inch Nails’ second sold-out performance at the Tabernacle, there’s still just the one and only, but it helps to have three look-alikes on stage to back you up.
From the balcony, the audience peers as though it can see through the darkness and identify the bandmates. A blast of bright white produced by six bulb-filled panels flashes, and the rush of the audience toward the stage is like adrenaline personified.
I ask a guy about the Dresden Dolls’ opening performance, but he acts like he can’t hear me. Then, irritatingly, he taps me on the shoulder and asks me to scoot over so he can see better even though we’re both violating the Tabernacle’s strict “stay in the lines” policy. After the third time repeating my question - and being ignored, I head downstairs.
Trent Reznor lets his guitarist do most of the running around and he saves his energy for a 17-strong set that opens with “You Know What You Are?” off the new album, With Teeth. Aside from the halter top-wearing Bettie Page look-alike and Size 0 plaid zipper skirt hottie, there is less PVC and leather than I expected. The few who dare to break the concert T-shirt rule collect cool for rocking well-worn ones, letters breaking off bit by bit.
Then again, it’s not a night for fashion - but damn if 40-year-old Reznor doesn’t look good in his black tank top that shows off his shapely biceps. Instead, it’s a night for hardcore, honest and reflective songs with an equally hardcore fanbase shouting in synch with each and every word. From age 15 to 50, “March of the Pigs’” dubby first notes bounce the crowd along, and soon has them laughing as Reznor throws at least two mics into the crowd and yells his first words of the night to the sound crew: “Turn the fucking mic up, you stupid fucking cocksucker!”
In the later half of the set, Reznor gets rougher and harder, making me a little nervous as “Closer” comes on. It’s just weird watching 30-and-over semi-geeks who you imagine lack robust sexuality pump their fists and sing, “I want to fuck you like an animal!” Overload, indeed.
That must be how the folks near the soundboard in the rear of the venue’s main floor feel when an average-sized chick tries to crowd surf. By the second person, she’s fallen forehead first - an abrupt end to her adventure, similar to the end of “The Big Come Down” that backs her attempt. Lesson No. 4,081: You need to be in the midst of the crowd to do that shit.
Or, you could really get in on the action, like the guy who jumps from the second-floor balcony onto a speaker during the set’s last song, “Head Like a Hole.” The guitarist hands him the guitar and speaker boy actually adds a complementary sound to the politically charged thrashing of things. After standing up in triumph WWE-style, speaker boy moons the crowd … and is promptly arrested when the lights go up.
Speaking of outbursts, there’s quite a “fire siren” standing in front of me, called as much by a thick-sideburned concert-goer who asks her to apologize to his boy nearby - or at least give the guy her digits. She explains that she works at a haunted house, so Nine Inch Nails - and presumably, screaming, darkness and all that’s scary in life - is like home to her. Hey, she just wants to have a good time. And she, like everyone else, seems to do just that - backups included.