NIN - How Cool Am I?

Yes - last night I took my old, cranky ass to the Nine Inch Nails concert at Madison Square Garden. How cool does that make me? AND I didn't even go with my husband. I ventured out on my own with my friend Randy from Reprise Media. Crazy - huh?

It was such a flash back to 1995 and the scene of my last NIN concert. I saw Trent Reznor and David Bowie at The Meadows outside of Hartford, CT. That same year I also saw Marilyn Manson and The Beastie Boys - those were great times. Driving around CT in my convertible Toyota Celica thinking I was all the shit blasting my CD player with the booster under the seat. Ahhhh...memories.

Flash forward to 2005. Here I am, 30+ something years old. Working my ass off 10 hours a day for the Man. Buying houses, getting in debt, trying to have babies. And I shrug it all off for one night to go see one of the original loves of my life - Trent. I have to say he is looking mighty buff. Gone are the days of the Heroin Chic. His arms were like guns. His thighs looked very thick in his leather jeans. His hair was shot on the sides and floppy on top - but still jet black. He still had the moves though - and is still sexy as hell.

The band was incredible. They were so tight - of course. I explained to Randy the Pro-Suite rig that sat in front of us on the floor. He was a but dissappointed to hear that bands play their tracks, loops and fills a la computer and just sort of sing and play along on stage. For me it was really cool to look at the show from a more technical perspective and try to figure out how they were getting the sounds, etc. No matter how they did it - they sounded excellend and had more energy than I could ever muster.

They played all the favorites; Head Like a Hole, Animal, Hurt, etc., etc. Trent got all political in the middle of the show and brought out the old video projector with images of tanks, bombs and George and Laura dancing in the ballroom. Nice. The crowd went wild.

And speaking of the crowd - they were all old. Well, mostly old. My age. Not so many Goth kids. I mean, I was one of those Goth kids at the show in 1995 - I suppose we all were. Instead I saw guys wearing their suit shirts tied around their waists. Old fat guys behind us got so wasted on the $9 champagne that was being served that one of them was asked to leave - only problem is he couldn't really make it up the stairs. Hilarious and sad at the same time. I hate to think NIN has lost their cache with the younger audience. It's a shame if they have because this was a real live old school kick-ass rock and roll show. Something every kid needs to see at least once in their lives.

The kicker (isn't there always a kicker?) is that Ernie came home from his rehearsal and said "Kevin had backstage passes for that show but he couldn't go because we had rehearsal". WHAT! He could have given them to me had Ernie mentioned anything the day before. So I missed my chance to hang out with Trent and the guys. Maybe next time.