Nine Inch Nails - Hordern Pavilion 24/02/09

“Dot Dot Dot”, had I tried to write this blog any earlier, it's about as coherent as I could have been in trying to find the words to describe the night Nine Inch Nails played the Hordern Pavilion. Even today, 4 days on from that night, seeking solace on the NSW South Coast ( a trip where my dad had to endure "The Downward Spiral", he wasn’t impressed and in complete disbelief that I paid to see a live performance by these guys ), I still am struggling to explain what I had witnessed, an event that will never be forgotten and one that will go down as one of the most memorable of my life, for many reasons.

Like Radiohead and others before them, I stopped listening to NIN in the mid 90’s at the time "Closer" was being murdered by mainstream radio. It wasn’t until about 3 years ago about the time “With Teeth” was released, that I realised what I had missed out on and it was the tour of the same name in Oz that I didn’t experience but I wasn’t going to miss out on them this time.

Trent Reznor, NIN head honcho, can be one moody, angst ridden and intense individual, at least that was what I was prepared for. Firstly let me say that many thanks goes to a very dear friend of mine, an absolute die hard NIN fan and one of immense knowledge of the musical world, in particular the dark side of NIN. She pretty much psyched me up for the big day and was an abundant source of information as I tried to catch up on almost 15 years of lost NIN history. If I was going to see these guys live, I was going to be well and truly prepared. Suffice to say my friend had also given much prior warning about Trent and his moods swings and that the night could go either way, so I went prepared for the unexpected which in turn added an air of mystery and excitement.

Well, Trent definitely didn’t live up to his sordid reputation, in fact I have never seen any one performer with so much concern about the great spread of punters before him as Trent displayed on that night. From the intense humid heat, he made sure that plenty of water was being dispatched to the ever thirsty crowd, right through to the power grid blowout. Oh yes, NIN blew the power in the Hordern Pavilion, you can’t get any more “Rockin Out” than that folks. Anyhow, Trent came out on two occasions, megaphone in hand, to explain why there was no power and for everyone to remain patient, for 40 minutes without power the crowd sat tight and eventually erupted in a chorus of “Hurt”, nobody was going anywhere. So this brings me onto the night itself, one that transpired in two parts, thanks to the blackout, which in my opinion just added to the experience.

The set list itself consisted of songs that spanned the ever long back catalogue of NIN, many of which were unknown to me due to my self imposed exile from the NIN phenomenon but this did not detract one little bit from my intense enjoyment of the night. The lighting was phenomenal from blinding intense light to the moody blues and reds all juxtaposed to create a surreal emotional wrenching environment. If the NIN fans came expecting a sound reminiscent to that of their CD’s, they would have been disappointed, it was a stripped back sound, raw and full of attitude, if fact you could see Trent and crew winching and squirming their way through the songs, they seemed to put every bit of raw emotion into what they sang and this set the crowd off.

I was standing about 6 rows back from the stage, towards the right hand side speaker stack just to the side of Robin Finck, so I had a great view of both Trent and the guitar maestro Robin, from where I was the sound was perfect and a quick look back at the crowd confirmed a complete sell out.

A big sincere sorry to those who read this blog expecting a blow by blow description of each song but my recollection of the night, encapsulated in this blog is based on pure emotion that I still feel and for me it was a matter of timing, I had to find the right time to put my feelings to words, too soon it would have been a nonsensical mess and too much later the true intense power of the night would have been lost.

One final word of thanks to Wendy, the night would have been lost on me without your continual feed of information combined with your passion for all things NIN, for that I owe you my most sincere thanks, which culminated in one of my most memorable nights and the best concert I have experienced.

And as a parting sentiment, in the words of NIN, “I remember everything”.

Interpol - Hordern Pavilion 21/2/08

Ok, you know how on occasion you’re watching TV and you slowly doze off only to be woken up in the middle of the night, TV still blurting away in the background and you’re totally dazed as you reluctantly go and turn it off? But I digress, what has this got to do with seeing Interpol at the Hordern Pavilion? Not much really, other than this is how I got into Interpol in the first place, the song was PDA and I woke the next morning with it still playing in my head.

Not even 12 months had passed since that fateful wake from my slumber and I was lining up outside of the Hordern, an hour before gates opened ..waiting…and waiting. Well we all know of the adage “well worth the wait” well it was certainly the case in that particular moment in time.

As noted earlier, my introduction to Interpol has been very brief, albeit they have only released 3 CD’s since 2002, but I have noticed that people either like them or they don’t. Their style of song and music tends to polarise people in their opinion of the band, so in a way the people that attended the concert that night “wanted” to be there…and it showed.

The band was amazing, there wasn’t a note played out of tune, very tight and very professional. The sound was spot on and the lighting was not too overbearing and strategically bathed the band in colours of intermittent Blues, Reds, Orange and Yellow, it was almost an interstellar look and feel and complemented the songs very well. Oh and the music, music, music…this is a band that truly lets their music do the talking, no fancy gimmickry, animation or stage props, just brilliant melodies and superb vocals ( Paul Banks is an example of being able to produce an outstanding vocal performance without the requirement of an extensive vocal range or the use of vocal theatrics, he was solid and on the mark the whole night ), a band that was completely in tune with one another and a thoroughly polished unit.

Although Interpol were touring Australia promoting their latest album ‘Our Love To Admire’, they played songs from all three albums, including my subliminal calling song "PDA", which they saved for the last song of the evening.

An absolutely brilliant concert by an equally brilliant band, one that seemed to actually enjoy the crowd and the opportunity in performing for us all.

Oh, and to my two Czech friends that I lost in the crowd on the dance floor “Já doufám že jste měli výbornou noc”

David