(no subject)
So, it's been over a week since the show/trip to TO and I haven't really posted anything.
I really don't even know where to start. I'll just note some of the highlights, I guess... Cut for your viewing pleasure!
Friday
• This was one of the best days that I've had in a really long time. It included the subway, hanging out with Cal, GOING TO SEPHORA, shopping and dinner on Queen Street, a nice nap, great conversation, sushi, and just chilling with good friends. I really needed that. One hilarious thing of note that happened (only select Western people will REALLY find this funny) was when Cal and I were hanging out by the elevators on our floor in the hotel. There was an internal line phone near us and a hotel employee picked it up and said "Housekeeping" and for some reason Cal and I immediately had to look away and it took EVERY MUSCLE IN MY BEING to not burst into hysterics in front of him. As soon as he was out of view I think I laughed harder than I have in a ridiculously long time.
Saturday/CONCERT DAY!!!
• We decided to walk from our hotel to Ontario Place (where the Molson Amphitheatre is). This took about an hour or so, in the hot afternoon sun. The weather really was quite fabulous. Hot sun, cool breeze, 24 degrees MAX. We left our hotel around 2ish, so we'd have time to have lunch and get there in plenty of time to check out the Spiral line. Because of this we had to make sure we were ready for the concert. So ya, this meant that I had to walk around Toronto, in FULL OUT black BLACK BLACK eye makeup, with two people with their matching 'Option 30' t-shirts tucked into ripped jeans, and matching aviator sunglasses. Ok, I really can't lie, I loved every second of it.
• We got to the venue around 5ish, picked up our tickets at the Spiral tent (the Spiral tickets are SUPER COOL. They're black and green and say NIN in metallic silver writing, AND my name is printed on it. I think I'm going to frame mine.) Anyways, Ontario Place is mainly for children, with waterslides, rides and cotton candy stands everywhere. Picture this: Children's amusement park, happy kids and families running amok, along with hundreds of Spiral members/NIN fans decked out in black, metal things in their faces, spikes... it was pretty awesome.
• We then found the Spiral line, and eventually made our way into the venue, straight to SUPER WICKED AWESOME spots on the floor. The person right in front of me was on the rail, in the centre. That's how close we were.
• Peaches took the stage around 6something, and was actally really awesome. Her drummer was an ANIMAL!!!! SOOO GOOD! I think the highlight of her set was when they whipped out twin KEYTARS!!!
• Bauhaus came on around 7:45ish, and were AWESOME!!!!! Peter Murphy was fantastic. Ok they were all fantastic. The bass player was playing a fret-less bass. Man, you would have to have a pretty good ear to pull that off, and he certainly did. There was this little British kid right up at the rail, who couldn't have been older than 12 or so, who was freaking out through their entire set... like... dancing like a fiend. It was hilarious. The band threw roses at him, gave him the drumsticks and the setlist. As soon as they left the stage, he pushed through the crowd, saying in a little schoolboy accent, "You can have all the Nine Inch Nails you want! I got what I wanted!!" It was really cute/hilarious
• When Bauhaus was finished the crowd, who hadn't been moshing or crowdsurfing at all up to this point, suddenly compacted against the rail. I no longer had the use of my arms. We got to watch one of the roadies vacuum the stage, because Peter Murphy threw rose petals EVERYWHERE. The set up seemed to take forever, when, out of nowhere I was like "hey that guy looks fami...OMG!" It was Trent Reznor and the rest of the band. They just walked onto the stage, with all the crew still there, and started playing. It was SOOO COOL! Ok, from here til the end of the concert I will be putting my thoughts under the song they happened during.
Here is our setlist:
1 Somewhat Damaged
• What a way to start the show!
2 You Know What You Are?
• This is by far one of the greatest I"M SO FUCKING ANGRY BUT REALLY PUMPED ALL AT THE SAME TIME songs
3 Sin
• Who doesn't love Sin?!? I found it really cathartic to sing along to this with the band and everyone in the pit, actually! Trent was making the "inbetween lines I'm going to look to the side while still grabbing the mic with both hands and laughing/making a really intense face" thing that I LOVE. Dan can do a very good impression of it, actually.
4 Terrible Lie
5 March Of The Pigs
• Pit starts getting a little crazy. Aaron North jumped into the crowd during this one. He ended up kicking a girl in the face (accidentally) and giving her a nose bleed. Security pulled her out and took her backstage. After the show, the whole band (minus Trent) went to talk her and gave her a signed copy of the setlist (they even tracked down Trent to sign it as well). I would SOOOOO take a nosebleed for that!!! Why didn't he kick ME in the face?!?
6 Something I Can Never Have
• It took me til about halfway through this song to get over the fact that they were playing it/that Trent Reznor was less than 10 feet away from me. I think it was around here that Dan left the mosh pit, leaving James and I and James' two friends
7 Closer
• RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME LIGHTING AND EFFECTS! I was expecting more of a random orgy in the pit but... meh, you can't win 'em all
8 Burn
• By this point I was starting to feel pretty dehydrated. Keep in mind that I hadn't consumed any liquids since about 4 and was now sweating like a pig, more than 5 hours later. This was also the part where not falling down in the craziness of the mosh pit was starting to take up more of my time and energy.
9 Gave Up
• SOOO GOOD.
10 Help Me I Am In Hell
11 Non-Entity
• This song was really good. An instrumental track.
12 Only
• This was also extremely cathartic. Watching Trent scream "THERE IS NO FUCKING YOU!!!" was kind of awesome.
13 Wish
• James and his friends ducked out of the pit somewhere around here. So now I'm by myself with no one to catch me. I love this song.
14 La Mer
• They brought a keyboard out to the front so Trent could play this. They like... NEVER play this, which was SOOO EXCITING. I was really amazed/pleased with the high percentage of songs from The Fragile that were being played
15 Into The Void
16 The Big Come Down
• SO glad they played this, but halfway through I decided that it was time to duck out of the pit. I somehow managed to run into James in a clearing near the back. It's around here that things are really blurry. I was having trouble standing up and my mouth was SUPER dry. I would have KILLED for a bottle of water
17 Dead Souls
• Joy Division cover
18 Suck
• I wish I could have been in the pit for this one.
19 Down In It
• As soon as he started singing this I perked up again. AS IF THEY PLAYED DOWN IN IT!!! I LOVE THIS SONG! It's like... bad 80's rap but SO GOOD!
20 Hurt
• Hurt was pretty magical. It was just Trent and a piano. I phoned Mary so she could hear it too
21 The Hand That Feeds
• blurriness starts to return
22 Head Like A Hole
• It is a known fact that they always close the show with this song, and then smash all the guitars, etc... As soon as I heard it start I decided to jump back into the crowd, and it was definitely worth it.
So ya. The show was so good that it actually seems like a blur. Many people said that Trent was more high energy for this show than they'd seen him in a while. He also made a comment about how Canadian audience rule and that it's "nights like this and audiences like you that make it all worthwhile"... or...something like that...
After watching some people literally beat the SHIT out of eachother with mics/setlists/etc at the front of the pit we decided to start filing out. We were halfway out of the venue when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Brad! SOOO random that we'd run into eachother in such a huge crowd.
We were all feeling pretty dehydrated and exhausted and didn't even end up getting back to our hotel til about 12:45. The boys vetoed the Spiral afterparties (BOO!) We didn't leave to go out til about 1:30. We decided to get drunk at the first bar we saw. This ended up being a little bar on Queen Street West. The rest of the evening included getting to Zanzibar 4 minutes too late "But the girls never stop! The sign says that the girls never stop!! WHY DID THE GIRLS STOP?!" and then they had the brilliant idea of going to a gay bar in the village. Since it was Pride, maybe bars had special event licensing that allowed them to serve alcohol til 4am. I may have been quite the hag in my day, but I'm not really anymore and hadn't been in a gay bar in AGES. Within 2 minutes of getting there like...5 guys came up to me and told me I was fabulous/started telling me their problems/asked me where I picked up the two "cute guys" I was with...etc... I felt like I had just taken 5 GIANT steps back :P It was hilarious though.
After drinking and dancing for a bit, we walked back to our hotel, with grand plans to jam in our room. We all lay down on one of the beds, me half off the bottom. I woke up 3 hours later, in the exact same position. All in all, one quality night.
Sunday
• We got ready to check out of our room for 11. As we were starting to walk out the door of our room, my cell phone rang. It was Mattt! He was asking about the weekend, the concert, etc... the volume on the earpiece of my phone was pretty loud, which didn't really matter until he exclaimed: "So, did you get LAID THIS WEEKEND??" I'm not 100% sure that the guys heard, but it was still hilarious. I responded with "MATTHEW!??!" and immediately turned the volume down.
• The rest of the day was made up of looking for food, going to see Thank You For Smoking (VERY funny. I highly recommend it), and ending up at Le Bifthèque in the business district to pass the time til our train. GHOST. TOWN. That was easily the most random part of the weekend. We were sitting there, in a booth in a super fancy restaurant, with all our bags, basically just existing, while SUPER random oldies, like Barry Manilow's "Mandy" played in the background... SOOO random. But easily one of the best weekends of my life.
I really don't even know where to start. I'll just note some of the highlights, I guess... Cut for your viewing pleasure!
Friday
• This was one of the best days that I've had in a really long time. It included the subway, hanging out with Cal, GOING TO SEPHORA, shopping and dinner on Queen Street, a nice nap, great conversation, sushi, and just chilling with good friends. I really needed that. One hilarious thing of note that happened (only select Western people will REALLY find this funny) was when Cal and I were hanging out by the elevators on our floor in the hotel. There was an internal line phone near us and a hotel employee picked it up and said "Housekeeping" and for some reason Cal and I immediately had to look away and it took EVERY MUSCLE IN MY BEING to not burst into hysterics in front of him. As soon as he was out of view I think I laughed harder than I have in a ridiculously long time.
Saturday/CONCERT DAY!!!
• We decided to walk from our hotel to Ontario Place (where the Molson Amphitheatre is). This took about an hour or so, in the hot afternoon sun. The weather really was quite fabulous. Hot sun, cool breeze, 24 degrees MAX. We left our hotel around 2ish, so we'd have time to have lunch and get there in plenty of time to check out the Spiral line. Because of this we had to make sure we were ready for the concert. So ya, this meant that I had to walk around Toronto, in FULL OUT black BLACK BLACK eye makeup, with two people with their matching 'Option 30' t-shirts tucked into ripped jeans, and matching aviator sunglasses. Ok, I really can't lie, I loved every second of it.
• We got to the venue around 5ish, picked up our tickets at the Spiral tent (the Spiral tickets are SUPER COOL. They're black and green and say NIN in metallic silver writing, AND my name is printed on it. I think I'm going to frame mine.) Anyways, Ontario Place is mainly for children, with waterslides, rides and cotton candy stands everywhere. Picture this: Children's amusement park, happy kids and families running amok, along with hundreds of Spiral members/NIN fans decked out in black, metal things in their faces, spikes... it was pretty awesome.
• We then found the Spiral line, and eventually made our way into the venue, straight to SUPER WICKED AWESOME spots on the floor. The person right in front of me was on the rail, in the centre. That's how close we were.
• Peaches took the stage around 6something, and was actally really awesome. Her drummer was an ANIMAL!!!! SOOO GOOD! I think the highlight of her set was when they whipped out twin KEYTARS!!!
• Bauhaus came on around 7:45ish, and were AWESOME!!!!! Peter Murphy was fantastic. Ok they were all fantastic. The bass player was playing a fret-less bass. Man, you would have to have a pretty good ear to pull that off, and he certainly did. There was this little British kid right up at the rail, who couldn't have been older than 12 or so, who was freaking out through their entire set... like... dancing like a fiend. It was hilarious. The band threw roses at him, gave him the drumsticks and the setlist. As soon as they left the stage, he pushed through the crowd, saying in a little schoolboy accent, "You can have all the Nine Inch Nails you want! I got what I wanted!!" It was really cute/hilarious
• When Bauhaus was finished the crowd, who hadn't been moshing or crowdsurfing at all up to this point, suddenly compacted against the rail. I no longer had the use of my arms. We got to watch one of the roadies vacuum the stage, because Peter Murphy threw rose petals EVERYWHERE. The set up seemed to take forever, when, out of nowhere I was like "hey that guy looks fami...OMG!" It was Trent Reznor and the rest of the band. They just walked onto the stage, with all the crew still there, and started playing. It was SOOO COOL! Ok, from here til the end of the concert I will be putting my thoughts under the song they happened during.
Here is our setlist:
1 Somewhat Damaged
• What a way to start the show!
2 You Know What You Are?
• This is by far one of the greatest I"M SO FUCKING ANGRY BUT REALLY PUMPED ALL AT THE SAME TIME songs
3 Sin
• Who doesn't love Sin?!? I found it really cathartic to sing along to this with the band and everyone in the pit, actually! Trent was making the "inbetween lines I'm going to look to the side while still grabbing the mic with both hands and laughing/making a really intense face" thing that I LOVE. Dan can do a very good impression of it, actually.
4 Terrible Lie
5 March Of The Pigs
• Pit starts getting a little crazy. Aaron North jumped into the crowd during this one. He ended up kicking a girl in the face (accidentally) and giving her a nose bleed. Security pulled her out and took her backstage. After the show, the whole band (minus Trent) went to talk her and gave her a signed copy of the setlist (they even tracked down Trent to sign it as well). I would SOOOOO take a nosebleed for that!!! Why didn't he kick ME in the face?!?
6 Something I Can Never Have
• It took me til about halfway through this song to get over the fact that they were playing it/that Trent Reznor was less than 10 feet away from me. I think it was around here that Dan left the mosh pit, leaving James and I and James' two friends
7 Closer
• RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME LIGHTING AND EFFECTS! I was expecting more of a random orgy in the pit but... meh, you can't win 'em all
8 Burn
• By this point I was starting to feel pretty dehydrated. Keep in mind that I hadn't consumed any liquids since about 4 and was now sweating like a pig, more than 5 hours later. This was also the part where not falling down in the craziness of the mosh pit was starting to take up more of my time and energy.
9 Gave Up
• SOOO GOOD.
10 Help Me I Am In Hell
11 Non-Entity
• This song was really good. An instrumental track.
12 Only
• This was also extremely cathartic. Watching Trent scream "THERE IS NO FUCKING YOU!!!" was kind of awesome.
13 Wish
• James and his friends ducked out of the pit somewhere around here. So now I'm by myself with no one to catch me. I love this song.
14 La Mer
• They brought a keyboard out to the front so Trent could play this. They like... NEVER play this, which was SOOO EXCITING. I was really amazed/pleased with the high percentage of songs from The Fragile that were being played
15 Into The Void
16 The Big Come Down
• SO glad they played this, but halfway through I decided that it was time to duck out of the pit. I somehow managed to run into James in a clearing near the back. It's around here that things are really blurry. I was having trouble standing up and my mouth was SUPER dry. I would have KILLED for a bottle of water
17 Dead Souls
• Joy Division cover
18 Suck
• I wish I could have been in the pit for this one.
19 Down In It
• As soon as he started singing this I perked up again. AS IF THEY PLAYED DOWN IN IT!!! I LOVE THIS SONG! It's like... bad 80's rap but SO GOOD!
20 Hurt
• Hurt was pretty magical. It was just Trent and a piano. I phoned Mary so she could hear it too
21 The Hand That Feeds
• blurriness starts to return
22 Head Like A Hole
• It is a known fact that they always close the show with this song, and then smash all the guitars, etc... As soon as I heard it start I decided to jump back into the crowd, and it was definitely worth it.
So ya. The show was so good that it actually seems like a blur. Many people said that Trent was more high energy for this show than they'd seen him in a while. He also made a comment about how Canadian audience rule and that it's "nights like this and audiences like you that make it all worthwhile"... or...something like that...
After watching some people literally beat the SHIT out of eachother with mics/setlists/etc at the front of the pit we decided to start filing out. We were halfway out of the venue when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Brad! SOOO random that we'd run into eachother in such a huge crowd.
We were all feeling pretty dehydrated and exhausted and didn't even end up getting back to our hotel til about 12:45. The boys vetoed the Spiral afterparties (BOO!) We didn't leave to go out til about 1:30. We decided to get drunk at the first bar we saw. This ended up being a little bar on Queen Street West. The rest of the evening included getting to Zanzibar 4 minutes too late "But the girls never stop! The sign says that the girls never stop!! WHY DID THE GIRLS STOP?!" and then they had the brilliant idea of going to a gay bar in the village. Since it was Pride, maybe bars had special event licensing that allowed them to serve alcohol til 4am. I may have been quite the hag in my day, but I'm not really anymore and hadn't been in a gay bar in AGES. Within 2 minutes of getting there like...5 guys came up to me and told me I was fabulous/started telling me their problems/asked me where I picked up the two "cute guys" I was with...etc... I felt like I had just taken 5 GIANT steps back :P It was hilarious though.
After drinking and dancing for a bit, we walked back to our hotel, with grand plans to jam in our room. We all lay down on one of the beds, me half off the bottom. I woke up 3 hours later, in the exact same position. All in all, one quality night.
Sunday
• We got ready to check out of our room for 11. As we were starting to walk out the door of our room, my cell phone rang. It was Mattt! He was asking about the weekend, the concert, etc... the volume on the earpiece of my phone was pretty loud, which didn't really matter until he exclaimed: "So, did you get LAID THIS WEEKEND??" I'm not 100% sure that the guys heard, but it was still hilarious. I responded with "MATTHEW!??!" and immediately turned the volume down.
• The rest of the day was made up of looking for food, going to see Thank You For Smoking (VERY funny. I highly recommend it), and ending up at Le Bifthèque in the business district to pass the time til our train. GHOST. TOWN. That was easily the most random part of the weekend. We were sitting there, in a booth in a super fancy restaurant, with all our bags, basically just existing, while SUPER random oldies, like Barry Manilow's "Mandy" played in the background... SOOO random. But easily one of the best weekends of my life.