I just got home and posted this in the Photo thread, as this wasn't yet open - -

I'll give y'all a quick update before I wash the mud and stink off!

The show was absolulty brilliant - the 8th time I've seen NIN in 14 years, and this was as good a show as any I've seen. The sound was actually brilliant, surprisingly for a festival, and the boys were very tight. Trent seemed in high spirits and again told the Sydney crowd to go and steal his music!

I'll wait for someone to post an exact setlist, but we got (off the top of my head)

1000000, Letting You, March Of The Pigs, Something I Can Never Have, Reptile, Suck, Wish, The Good Soldier, Survivalism, Gave Up, Dead Souls, Non Entity,La Mer, The Fragile, The Downward Spiral,Hand That Feeds, Head Like A Hole, Burn and Hurt. (not the right order)

Fucking awesome! I'll see them Tuesday night for the 9th and probaly last time ( Mind you Trent did mention a "break" and said he hopes to return to Sydney as he "fucking loves the place"

Me. Shower. Now.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2009 06:18AM by mickjames.

thanks for the update guys, I'm still pumped up from last night's gig lol

fucking outstanding show!
trent was spot on and sounded amazing.
i realized how much i have missed robin's guitars - aside from the GN'R tour, but that doesn't really count.

that said, the soundwave festival itself sucked about 1,000,000 tonnes of monkey spunk.
or to put it another way: if you lined up my wife, summer glau and that chick who plays 13 on house, got them all naked and writhing around together in the throes of passion, panting my name while Trent played The Perfect Drug, Sunspots (my wedding song) and a bunch of other NIN stuff i've always wanted to hear live, i would refuse to partake - if it happened to be taking place at another soundwave festival.

Trent, thanks for one of the best sets ever, but please kick the organisers of those continual two hour lines in the nuts on behalf of all of us that endured them.

a lot of people missed things they wanted to see because of really, really bad planning, and the security seemed like they were actually TRYING to start a riot by antagonising us.

ps: the fragile was win ++
can't wait to see you on tuesday and wednesday!

Tonight was incredible - the performance was 100x stronger than Auckland, and Trent was in a self-confessed awesome mood, so that made it even better.

Here are my photos:

Link 1
Link 2

A few videos:
Reptile
Suck
Dead Souls



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2009 06:20PM by kier.

burn:
[www.youtube.com]

picture quality is bogus, but the sound is ok

Beginning on a sombre note, why is it that after all the years of going to music festivals in this country, I am still having to stand in a line for hours on end - whether it be alcohol wrist bands, alcohol, ATMs or getting in the front gate? Ok so I've learnt to bring cash with me, and Soundwave seemed to have tackled the alcohol part by (a) checking ID and giving you a wristband at the gate and (b) having dedicated fenced-off alcohol zones with extremely long bars and plenty of staff to serve it.

But I arrived at the venue at around 11:30am, and stood in the line to get in the entrance gate for over 3 hours - I was in after 3:00pm. Ok so the point of this is security - everybody got a rub-down on entry, as well as an alcohol wristband - but if you are an organiser and you know that you need to do these things, why only have 2 entrances only 15 metres wide with thousands of people to check? It was like a dam - thousands of people standing in the sun huddled together whilst people only trickled out the other side. It was extremely frustrating and people were annoyed and irritated, not to mention the fact that I missed most of the music that played during the day. And my head looks like a tomato today after being in the sun. This aspect generally detracted from the entire experience.

Anyway now that I've had a rant, on to NIN. I was extremely impressed with the performance. The band was incredibly tight and it was a very freeing performance for Trent. He seemed to really enjoy himself and was in high spirits the whole night. It was so great to see Robyn as well, I love watching him play and have always found him the best choice for the lead guitar role in the live line-up.

As always theres a list as long as my arm of songs I'd have loved to have heard on the setlist, but it was amazing nonetheless. Couple of faves were La Mer, The Fragile and Suck. I'll be there on Tuesday at the Hordern, so really hoping for some changes to the setlist to see a slightly different show. Nonetheless I enjoyed myself immensely last night watching NIN again - I had a great spot up fairly close, but still able to jump around like an idiot (that's what a dozen beers will do for you). The amazing Reznor silhouette(??) will forever be ingrained on the back of my retinas!

One thing that surprised me a little was the fact there were only four in the live line-up - did I miss something and just not up-to-date with the world, or did any other fans notice this? However it was generally very positive as Trent seemed to take on a few more instruments than normal. I remember when I saw them in 2007 after the release of YZ, Trent basically stuck with vocals all night and had minimal involvement with the instruments. But this time around it was great to see him with guitars and on keys and the Macs - it looks like he seems to enjoy playing a lot more with a geet strapped around his shoulder!

Really looking forward to tomorrow night in Sydney (for hopefully not the last time!!) Thanks Trent and everyone for making this experience amazing for me!

My photos from the day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2009 10:16PM by Chowderhawk.

Was further back for this one (planning of going closer for the Hordern)
But that was the most varied/unique setlist I think I've ever seen! So many surprises!
Trent's music/career banter was something of a high point, serious respect for that.
But all in all, fantastic. If this is going to be the last tour for the forseeable future, it's going to be a great note to end on.

Oh, & this.
Acharis' list of people who can get fucked:
-Anyone who thinks clapping during hurt is a good idea.

mickjames posted:

Acharis posted:

Acharis' list of people who can get fucked:
-Anyone who thinks clapping during hurt is a good idea.

- what, the entire crowd except for yourself? There's many ways to enjoy a rock show - revered silence or dancing and clapping and singing at the top of yer lungs like myself.

It's the clapping out of time that fucks everything up, they need to have a giant metronone above the stage for such moments....

They do have a "giant metronome" as such. It's called Trent & co clapping as a guide (eg: gave up, motp, htf, etc).

I have no problem with those who want to express their enjoyment of the experience, singing/dancing/clapping, what have you (I myself was jumping around to the point where I can't feel my toes), believe me. But there's a time & place for everything & I simply can't understand what it is about that song, that makes people feel like doing that.

frozenincarbonite posted:

fucking outstanding show!
trent was spot on and sounded amazing.
i realized how much i have missed robin's guitars - aside from the GN'R tour, but that doesn't really count.

that said, the soundwave festival itself sucked about 1,000,000 tonnes of monkey spunk.
or to put it another way: if you lined up my wife, summer glau and that chick who plays 13 on house, got them all naked and writhing around together in the throes of passion, panting my name while Trent played The Perfect Drug, Sunspots (my wedding song) and a bunch of other NIN stuff i've always wanted to hear live, i would refuse to partake - if it happened to be taking place at another soundwave festival.

Trent, thanks for one of the best sets ever, but please kick the organisers of those continual two hour lines in the nuts on behalf of all of us that endured them.

a lot of people missed things they wanted to see because of really, really bad planning, and the security seemed like they were actually TRYING to start a riot by antagonising us.

ps: the fragile was win ++
can't wait to see you on tuesday and wednesday!

Sorry...didn't read this before I submitted my post. You made the same point I did RE; organisation.
Terrible organisation.

I have to say it didn't seem that bad?? Maybe festivals in New Zealand are like a million times worse haha.

From the moment we got off the train @ Blacktown, we were straight onto a bus to the venue, and from there it took all of 5mins to get in the gate.

The only thing that sucked was the toilets, and the fact that in order to get to the main stages from the entrance we came in through (down by Stage 6) we had to walk through an entire crowd of people which took about 15mins.

Other than that, I had no complaints.

Wow, I must have been lucky with the lines. Got there at 1:30pm at the south entrance and walked right in, no issues. Security were friendly and barely even poked my backpack let alone looked inside it.

The venue itself was terribly organised. Whoever thought to put a bottleneck between the metal stage and the beer garden was a fool. It was a melting pot for people just looking for a fight. The two times I went through there I got crushed. On the way out my shoe was torn to pieces and the only way I managed to escape was by screaming at the top of my lungs and pushing back with all my might to get people off me. I have been in crowd crushes before, but that was the first time I got scared, ever.

And what was with the total lack of shade? There was one tent in the beer garden I was in and it was packed all day. I ended up buying one of those sombrero's and using it as an umbrella just to save myself from cancer.

I did however like that the stages were all set in almost amphitheater mode so you could sit down and watch rather than standing on tip toe straining to see. I know, I know... I wasn't down in it, so I can't be a real fan. Bite me. At 5'2" a mosh is a dangerous place for me to be. No one plays by the rules anymore and if you fall down no one helps you back up. So I gave up on that experience long ago.

All of my complaints aside, the set was awesome. It was different seeing the band as a 4 piece. Definitely looking forward to tonight

There was almost no problems getting into the site from the Western entry, weird, eh? I heard several stories about hours getting in via the East. No real security checks at the West seems to be the real difference. And the positioning of the stages (especially the Metal stage) was an absolute joke. The size of some stage would surely have been an insult to the bands. I saw Alesana in a shoe box!

Fucking awesome show by NiN. The lights were incredible, and I don't actually think would be a problem with epileptics. I have a minor history of grand mal seizures and am prone to weird reactions to strobe frequencies (or near strobes, flickering fluoro's for instance) and I didn't have a problem. My wife (a medicated epileptic) is taking a blindfold to the Hordern show tonight, just in case!

Non-Entity!!!!!!! OK, Trent, I've seen it live, you can quit now!

I will be posting videos as soon as I've finished encoding them and uploading them.

Well what can I say, many, many moons after buying PHM on cassette (circa 1993...) I finally got to see the band play live! After way to many years of being abroad or broke when they toured there was no way I was going to miss Sunday night!

All I can say is WOW!!! I thought Trent and the band put on a fantastic show, the sound was fantastic, the lights amazing, even the crowd were much cooler than I expected at a festival. I stood at the stage barrier right in front of the speakers at the left of stage and had no issues with being crowded during the show. In fact I think the sheer wall of noise coming from the speakers cleared many people away. I must admit to chewing up my map to make ear plugs by the end of March of the Pigs!

The highlight for me was Something 'I Can Never Have', when they started playing it I was super stoked! Apart from that the whole show was great, the setlist well paced and the energy levels fantastic

A question for the moderaters if I may, I recorded the show (audio) and was very happy with the results. Am I allowed to post a megaupload link to the mp3's? I know you allow video and photo's but I couldn't see anything about audio.

Cheers,
Ed

So far:

01 - Letting You

03 - The Fragile

05 - Band Intro

06- Trent Reznor's Speech

Many, many more to come, in excess of a few GB in High Def, so it'll take a while (including from the Sydney side show).

Uploading Non-Entity now. The audio of the files I recorded at the Sydney sideshow sound much better, because it was an indoor venue. Look out for those soon! They're truly awesome.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2009 05:14AM by Ryan.