With Teeth!

Nine Inch Nails, live at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, May 15, 2005. There is some magical to that, of course for those individuals who live in or around New York may not have the same feeling. This was my first concert to see outside of Texas, and I must say that the show was amazing!

Chris and I hopped a train to New York from DC on Sunday, we had a hotel room reserved at 32nd and Broadway, the Hammerstein Ballroom was on 34th between 8th and 9th Avenues, and of course Penn Station being walking distance from all of this made it very easy to get around.

Once we arrived we went in search of something to eat, and I would prefer something that doesn’t have franchises around the United States or world for that matter. So we started walking, unfortunately nothing looked promising. The streets were littered with Sbarros, TGI Fridays, McDonalds, and Burger King – I thought to myself I have been here before, I know there are non-chain restaurants here. We pressed on and eventually I saw a place called Ginger’s a quaint little chinese joint.

The atmosphere was nice, pleasant décor and white table clothes on all of the tables. The unfortunate thing is that it reminded me of an Episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Richard Lewis and Larry David are eating lunch and the tables are smashed together leaving no buffer between them and the person sitting next to them. Larry casually leaned over and asked the guy sitting next to him if he was getting all of their conversation. Well the tables weren’t quite as stacked there but they were within arms reach.

After lunch we decided it would be a good idea to find out exactly where the Hammerstein Ballroom was, so we started our walk over to 34th. As we made our way up I saw people were already gathered, it was then that I realized we were just in front of it. The exterior is very deceiving; it looked more like another office building. The people waiting three plus hours for the doors to open were eccentric, at least anywhere outside of a rock concert – just another face in the crowd there. Being dressed in black was there popular trend though, silly me though; I wore a blue and white t-shirt. The line extended for several blocks and we both felt that it would be silly to stand there for several hours prior to the doors opening. We retreated back to the hotel to check in and drop off our bags.

We got in the enormous line about forty minutes prior to the doors opening – it stretched all the way to 9th avenue and started to make its way down 9th. This prompted random passers by to ask, “What is the line for?” The other popular question was “Have any extra tickets for Nine Inch Nails?” Ticket scalping in New York is illegal, but when there is a demand a supply will be created.

We made our way into the Hammerstein, and I was surprised at how good the view was anywhere you stood on the floor. There are two mezzanine levels, and box seats on either side, the décor and architecture in there is not as detailed as it is in the Majestic Theater in San Antonio, but had a nice touch to say the least.

One of the things which caught my eye immediately was the Coin Operated Girl which were placed on either side of the floor area. If you dropped some amount of money in their bucket they did some little dance number, the women doing this were wearing these; I don’t know goth ballerina outfits. I had no idea if they were associated with one of the bands or were doing it of their own volition. It seemed like an hour or so before the lights went out and the Dresden Dolls took the stage.

The Dresden Dolls (lead singer/pianist Amanda Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione) had their faces painted white with red lipstick accentuating their lips. Brian pounded the drums furiously while Amanda squirmed behind her keyboard in a sexy way. Their short set included a handful of original songs and a good version of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs and Radiohead’s Karma Police. They also had a song called Coin-Operated Boy which explains the coin operated girls I saw prior to them taking the stage. I was impressed by their performance and songs, and I was surprised they stopped so shortly. Brian got his shots at the crowd in before leaving the stage stating “Look, we realize we are just filler until Nine Inch Nails comes on, so this is your chance to yell ‘Fuck You!’ to us”. The crowd did just that, but Chris and I kept our mouths shut, granted we were eager for NIN to come on, but were enjoying The ‘Dolls show.

They did leave sooner than I thought, and NIN came on sooner than I thought. The stage had interesting light bars (seven feet tall?) made up of blue and red LED lights. Various other lights were placed around the stage, but no screens or extravagant props. The crowd exploded with Trent singing “this is the first day of my last days” – the opening lyrics to Wish, followed by a short technical problem which prompted Trent to state “about ten people are going to loose their jobs because of that”, and launched into March of the Pigs. This was followed by Sin, The Hand that Feeds. Unfortunately I can’t remember all of the songs they played in specific order, but it did include:

• The Collector


• Getting Smaller


• Head Like a Hole


• Closer


• Burn


• Hurt


• Suck


• Reptile


• Starfuckers

The show was amazing, high energy, good song selection; although I really wish he would have done another song rather than hearing Head Like a Hole. Trent initially appeared in a white dress shirt, which he quickly removed after the first song performing the rest of the show in a dark colored tank top, the rest of the band was wearing all black, long sleeve shirts with black pants. The guitarist was crazy, at one point he was playing upside down over one of the amplifiers, all you could see were his feet, and he played like a possessed man during some of the instrumentals.

The show ended with Trent throwing his guitar straight up in the air and letting it land on the stage after he was through singing Starfuckers, Inc. What a show – if you get the chance to see NIN jump at the chance, but make sure to save me a ticket.