Nine Inch Nails
Queens of the Stone Age
Oakland Arena


We were supposed to see NIN on September 29th but it was postponed until November 19th because the drummer was having heart problems, so I was very excited to finally be seeing them. We had seem an abbreviated show of theirs at Coachella and I had really liked it. I had not been a huge fan before then, I had know their main hits but did only owned one CD. After seeing them live I went out a bought everything I could get my hands on and have been listening to them ever since.

Tina came and got my about 7:30 and we headed out to the arena which is only a few miles from my house. When we got there we started looking for the special "Spiral" entrance for fan club members. After a few false starts we found it at the side of the Arena. We got our tickets at will call and headed in. I am really glad I remembered my ear plugs, this was an especially loud show. QOTSA were already playing. I am not a huge fan of this band and it didn't help that live them kind of played like a jam band and would play the same song for 15 minutes with instrumental parts for about 10 of those minutes. Not my style at all. We did have a good time looking at all the people and reading all the t-shirts. It was like band t-shirt heaven.

Finally NIN came on. All I can say is it was a fantastic show. Very straight ahead, little on theatrics and big on the rock! They had a cool stage set and a curtain that would go down in front of them at a point in the middle of the concert when they were playing some of their slower songs. It was almost see through so you could still see the outline of the band but see the images that were projected onto the screen. It was really cool. They played about 5 songs like that with images of flocks of animals and people flowing into images of was and destruction. It got the message home without saying a word. I was very impressed. Trent was also much more animated during this show than I remembered him being at Coachella. He danced and moved around the stage a lot more. That was great to see. Trent didn't talk much, which is what I expected. There were only a few thank yous, fuck yeas and he did thank us for coming back and apologized for the concert delay.

I left there exhausted, my back and knees were killing me from standing on the cement on floor, but I was so happy to finally see this band in a full concert.