NIN (wildyams)

Today I am in recovery mode after seeing Nine Inch Nails play down at Soma in San Diego in what was one of the best shows I've ever seen by anyone. I drove down there with Dave and Rebecca, and I had two extra tickets that I had not been able to get rid of. We left at around 2 or so after I picked them up because we wanted to avoid any traffic there might be heading down there later in the afternoon or evening. The ride down was a breeze, no traffic at all (although there was a lot on the other side of the freeway), and we got down there around 4 or so. Since the show started at 8, we decided to go try to find a place to eat and just relax; but first we went by the venue to check it out. There were already a fair amount of people waiting in line, but the venue was a really small place in a strip mall. It looked like the show was going to be at a music store the place was so small and inconspicuous. We were really excited about how small the place looked, because if you can see one of your favorite bands in a really small, intimate venue then you are indeed very lucky.

We cruised around for quite a while just checking everything out and eventually we headed to downtown San Diego to just drive around down there and see if we could find a good place to eat. We drove past Petco Park and the the Exhibition Center down there and checked out what appeared to be the popular spot for bars and clubs. We eventually found a place called the Corvette Diner, which was very reminiscent of Ed Debevic's, and which had some of the best chili cheese fries I've ever tasted.

After that we drove back to Soma and got in line. I walked down the line asking if anyone wanted to buy extra tickets, and since I was selling them for face value they were quickly snapped up without me having to walk more than about 20 feet. They let everyone in about an hour before the opening act, the Dresden Dolls, went onstage and first we went to the merchandise counter because Rebecca wanted to peruse the shirts. She settled on a Pretty Hate Machine long-sleeve hoodie (which was pretty cool if I do say so myself), and then we went inside to check the place out. I have to say, right away you could tell this was a fantastic place to see a show. The building was a converted movie theater from the era right before movie theaters went to stadium seating, so it was a big room that was maybe two stories high and the dimensions of the room were maybe 50 feet across and 200 feet long. The room also had a gradual slope down to the stage at one end of the room. It was obvious to tell the room was a converted movie theater because we could see the projection booths up near the ceiling in a couple places. We were all very amazed at how small the venue was for such a big band, and we were all excited about it.

The Dresden Dolls came on at about 8 and played for about 35 minutes. I'd never heard them before, but they were actually quite good, I must say. They consisted of a man on drums and a woman on keyboards and vocals. The highlights of their set were a song called "Coin-Operated Boy" (click to download the video) and a cover of the Black Sabbath song "War Pigs". They got a good reaction from the crowd, but clearly everyone was there to see the headlining act.

At a little after 9 the lights dimmed and the opening notes of "Pinion" began to play over the soundsystem as the band began to come on stage. The crowd surged ahead towards the stage and I was able to quickly get to within 20 or 30 feet of the stage before the first song started. They opened with "Wish" and the crowd just went wild. I was right in the middle of the pit for the entire show (except during "The Day The World Went Away", at which point I quickly made my way all the way to the back of the room to buy some water (I bought 3 bottles, one of which I drank right away, and the other 2 I took back into the pit with me); but I was back in the pit before the song ended, so I didn't miss much (and that's not at all one of my favorite songs anyway). All in all they played a really fantastic set, lasting about an hour and 45 minutes, give or take. Surprisingly they did not play "Happiness in Slavery", but they did play "Gave Up" instead, which I think is a better song anyway. They didn't play a couple of my favorite songs ("The Becoming", "Mr. Self Destruct", "Kinda I Want To" and "Ringfinger"), but I would have been really surprised if they had played any of those. However, they did play "Reptile" and "Burn" (which I was very pleased about), but highlight of the show was when Trent jumped into the crowd during "Closer", about 10 feet from me. My only real complaint I guess would be that they seemed to only play some of the worst songs off the last two albums, and you could see a definite difference in the crowd when they were playing songs off those albums as opposed to the stuff from "The Downward Spiral", "Broken" and "Pretty Hate Machine". Luckily most of what they played was from those three anyway, which is what I mainly wanted to hear anyway.

After the show I was completely soaked, almost like I'd gone swimming with my clothes on. It was part my sweat, part the sweat of those around me and part water I had poured on my head at various points. Afterwards though I could wring my shirt out it was so wet. Dave smartly brought a second shirt to wear home, but I had to just drive home in a wet shirt :lol I brought earplugs to the show and used them here and there, but my hearing was still muffled afterwards and I've still got ringing in my ears today. After I dropped Rebecca and Dave off I got home at a little before 2 am last night and immediately took a shower and then went to bed. With a big smile on my face :smile