Entering an Alternate Reality Where NIN is My Favorite Band

The Josh Wells Weekly, Episode 315

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Me and the girlfriend went to go see Nine Inch Nails this past Tuesday and it was rad. My shirt was very bright for a NIN show.

Random Thought

I’ve been on a tear with concerts lately and it feels pretty cool (a little expensive, but worth it for what I think is the greater good). I felt like I lost a quarter of the year to my fractured elbow fiasco and that I’d fallen behind my usual yearly numbers for concerts attended. But I caught three good ones recently (Sublime, System of a Down w/ Korn, and Nine Inch Nails) and I’m off to another one tonight in NYC (Stiff Little Fingers). And if we could take that Sublime show and consider the two openers who I was also very excited for (Bouncing Souls and Interrupters), that almost felt like two concerts. Me and the girlfriend also saw a cover band recently hanging out at Montclair Brewery (Straight Nasty). I don’t know if that counts as a full-fledged concert, but it was live music.

System of a Down and Korn were cool. It was all very last minute. I live pretty close to MetLife Stadium so one of the perks of that is I can wake up day of and decide that I wanna go to a concert there (as long as the secondary market’s got something reasonable, which wasn’t necessary in this case because a friend had an extra ticket). I like System of a Down a lot but for whatever reason, maybe it was because they were playing two nights in a row at MetLife, I didn’t feel any pressure to get a ticket in advance. I felt like if I really wanted to go, making it happen last minute wouldn’t be a problem.

System ruled. They played all the hits. They played some deep cuts. I’m a huge fan of their first album before they really blew up with Toxicity and I was worried that album would get neglected but if I remember correctly, they played four tracks from that album. They sounded great and the crowd was wild and loud.

If I have any complaint at all about System, it’s a small one. I wish they had said something about the genocide going on in Gaza. I felt like if any major touring band was gonna spit that genocide shit, it’d be them. Back in the day, this band opened my eyes to some ugly historical shit. I didn’t even know there was an Armenian genocide till I listened to that first System album and read along to the lyric sheet that came with the CD. But this shouldn’t take away from the quality of the show. It was a great live performance.

Also, I don’t really give a shit about Korn, but I can acknowledge that at one time they were a super big deal and since I never saw them before, I thought it’d be kinda cool. Turns out, Jonathan Davis might now be in the running for one of my favorite middle-aged front men. He came out with the kilt (it had sparkles or something on it), played the bagpipe, had the cool mic stand, and was still rocking those dreads. He made a self- deprecating remark about his receding hairline and also expressed sincere gratitude mid-set about how great it is that so many people still come out to see them.

Then there was the Nine Inch Nails show. Admittedly, Yana is the bigger fan. This concert was her idea but I’d seen NIN once before and they were really good live, so I thought it’d be a really cool time, and it was. In fact, it was better than the last time I saw them (the last time I saw them was a co-headlining show they did with Jane’s Addiction. It was an outdoor venue, and the sun was still out at the beginning of NIN’s set which does them no favors. It was still a very impressive live show though).

I had an epiphany of sorts at the NIN show. I can remember a Christmas of my teenage youth when I put CDs on my Christmas list, and I specifically asked for a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD and a NIN CD. I was young and still trying to figure my shit out and those two bands sorta represented different sides of my personality. My mom got me ‘One Hot Minute’ (RHCP) and ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ (NIN). I listened to both but I gravitated more towards RHCP. In hindsight, this felt like a very important, decisive moment in my life. If you’re given two paths, and those two paths are represented by these two bands, things can go in completely different directions.

I imagine if I had gravitated more towards NIN, I would’ve become an outwardly darker person. I mean, I got some darkness in me, but I don’t wear it on my sleeves like a NIN song/album does. Being there in that arena, listening to that music, surrounded by those fans, I felt like I was somehow touching an alternate reality, getting a peak at the Josh who chose that other path. I looked around and saw how into this dark, intense music everyone was, and I thought, I could’ve been super into this. I’m sorta into it now but as a dude with a RHCP tattoo, I think I can only wade so deep into the NIN pool.

But when Trent screamed on the chorus of ‘Heresy,’ “God is dead! And no one cares!” I was just like, fuck, I think there is a part of me that really loves this band. There’s still a dark part of my personality that connects really hard with NIN. Sure, I’ve liked some semi-dark stuff over the years… some punk, grunge, that Radiohead phase I went through… but NIN is a darkness that blankets all of that.

Trent Reznor is impressive live. The whole band is but with Reznor, it’s like you’re watching a mad scientist who set out to make the darkest music possible. He went out of his way to make the entire vibe dark. We got there early and there was moody synth music playing. There was sparse lighting. It was mostly a mix of darkness and red lights. It wasn’t just the music, which was impressive on its own. It was the stage set up (two stages actually, main stage and another stage in the middle of the floor), it was the intense amazing lighting that went along with the music. It was a complete package. NIN is not fucking around. I’m not gonna say it’s the most complete package I’ve seen at a concert mostly because I don’t trust my memory fully… but holy shit, that was a visceral audio/visual experience.

A couple of NIN sidenotes:

-I thought it was funny that Trent Reznor asked the audience to clap along a few times. I’ve never thought of NIN as a clap along/audience participation band.

-Josh Freese (their drummer) played like a man possessed. He was recently let go from the Foo Fighters and part of me wonders if that put a chip on his shoulder or if that’s just who he is all the time. Either way, he killed it.

I’d also like to state how I find it somewhat humorous that I consider myself an atheist and NIN seems like an appropriate band for a brooding atheist. And yet somehow, you’ll catch me listening to Sublime way more with their sunny disposition and lyrics like, “ain’t got no quarrels with God.” And I somehow stand by that lyric. I don’t believe in God, but I don’t have any issues with God either.

My friend Rob was at the System of a Down concert, but he had way better tickets. He was on the floor. I let him know that I was at the show and what section I was in. We had some discussion about me trying to get down to the floor but if you’ve been to MetLife, it’s really not possible (he has a wristband, and I don’t). Anyways… he came up to visit me during the show and we hung for a few which was cool. As he was leaving, he was like, “this better make the newsletter.” So, here you go Rob, this did in fact make the newsletter.

Also, rest in peace to the hat I’m wearing in this picture. I bought this hat maybe three or even four years ago, I can’t remember exactly, and I wore it ALL THE TIME. It had a patch with the words “Stay Weird” on it with a picture of a UFO. I loved this hat a bunch but if I’m being honest, it probably exceeded my expectations for how long it would last. I’m pretty sure the patch was super glued on. I figured this hat’s tenure was only gonna end in one of two ways…. I’d lose it somewhere or the patch would fall off. Well, the patch fell off the other day. So, that’s that. But you did good, hat. You did good.

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA

Hello loyal readers. I am making a format change starting this week. I love writing this newsletter, but it also sometimes feels like a chore. For my own sanity and enjoyment, I will no longer be writing long-winded paragraphs with my weekly thoughts about movies/tv/music/books/sports/wrestling. I’m gonna give you a quick list of what I’m watching and reading and listening to. I’m still gonna do the Top 5 and a Weekly Quote. And if the mood hits me in the future, maybe I’ll write at length about some of these things. But only if it’s gonna be something I enjoy writing and not feel like a chore.

I thank you for what I hope is your reasonable understanding on this matter.

Movie I watched this week: Roxanne Roxanne

-cool, sometimes heavy movie about female hip-hop pioneer, Roxanne Shanté

TV show I watched this week: South Park

-great new episode that continues to go after the Trump administration and also, they go after labubus.

Album I listened to this week: The Hives Forever Forever The Hives / The Hives

-The Hives release yet another very Hives album.

Book I’m currently reading: The Come Up (an Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop) / Jonathan Abrams

-slowly getting through this book. I’m up to the era of Sugarhill, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa

Another Random Thought

It feels like the Trump administration does at least one embarrassing thing per day, sometimes more. It’s a pace that’s hard to keep up with and sometimes it makes my head spin in such a fashion that I wanna give up paying attention to any of it at all.

But every now and again there’s a headline that rises above the rest of the pile of stink. Just yesterday I saw that Trump will (or already did) sign an Executive Order renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War (it’s old name pre-WW2). And while this isn’t really a policy thing, it still feels dirty and idiotic.

I have no delusions about the Dept of Defense. I know that just because the word ‘War’ wasn’t in its title doesn’t mean that it wasn’t already handling all of America’s war related stuff. But the name change to ‘Dept of Defense’ post-WW2 felt like a symbol of civility. Like, hey everyone, let’s try to at least pretend we don’t want total, unending war all the time. Changing it back to the Dept of War just states the obvious. America is a war machine that won’t consider changing its ways. The way is war. War is the way of the bullies. America has been taken over by the bullies.

If America was a Simpsons character, it’d be Nelson. We now live in the United States of Nelson. And if you don’t like it, too bad, the joke’s on you…

Top 5 NIN Songs

1- March of the Pigs

2- Head Like a Hole

3- Heresy

4- Hurt

5- Closer

Weekly Quote

“To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.”

-Trent Reznor

Thanks for reading!

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