We got there and found to our dismay that PWEI played first, and not last, like Daanon had been told. He was severely bummed, having come all the way from Phoenix to see them up close. He did get to talk to Clint (who was a bit curt with him), though.
We decided to hang around outside. We thought we might get to see some other "important" folk and that we might catch Tatum on her way out. They weren't letting any more people in at that point anyway. We saw someone pass by escorted by some security guard-type men. This someone looked suspiciously like Trent. I didn't think it was him, though I admitted it sure looked like him. Daanon swore up and down it was Trent. We later got a better look at him as he walked out of PWEI's bus, and we decided it wasn't him after all. We wondered who the heck he was, though....
We kept hanging around back at Muddy Waters, and eventually the "lovebirds" emerged from the Salad Shop. I mustered up my bravery, cut him off at the pass, and said, "You're Danny Lohner, aren't you?" "Huh?" "You're Danny, right?" "Yeah, I am!" So we started chatting a bit, told him how we came a long way just to see them and all. I introduced the others, and Kennedy loudly introduced herself. (Thanks, we weren't sure....) Eventually, Danny said he had to go find some people inside, so he said goodbye, and that maybe we'd see him later.
We walked back over to Muddy Waters and hung around again for a bit. We noticed Danny was still milling about outside, so we decided to go ask him a few questions. During the next few minutes, as we talked, Kennedy repeatedly bear-hugged him from behind, poked his cheeks, stuff like that. Oh, it was so cute. Danny was a good sport about it.
We first asked if they ever check into the newsgroup. He said they get a chance occasionally, whenever they get to stay in a hotel, but not all that often. We asked him what he thought, and he said it was all pretty wild. He said he reads only sparsely, but he's seen a lot of weird stuff, and he admits that there's a lot of information to be found here. And bullshit, as well. He reminisced briefly about his college days on the Internet, "back on the VAX."
I think it was at this point that Kennedy started laughing hysterically and found it necessary to tell us all about this scene in this one Simpsons episode that she found so funny. Paraphrasing: "So Lisa had to get these braces, but Homer lost the dental plan, so they couldn't afford nice ones, so they had to get these huge old ugly ones (Kennedy makes sweeping motions about face) instead, and it was picture day at school, so the photographer says, 'Come on little girl, smile, I'm sure there's a pretty girl underneath that frown,' so she smiles and shows these braces, and the photographer screams and says, 'There is no God!' and runs away! Hahahahahahaha!!!" We stood there, waiting for her to continue, but she never did. We were like, "...your point being...?" She went away for a little bit. After a bit more conversation with Danny, he went inside, too.
Kennedy was hanging with Danny. There is no God.
Lessee. We got some free t-shirts after the show was over. Tatum came out and saw us, what luck. We told her we had been chatting with Danny, and she told us about her conversations with Robin. It was all a lot more than we had expected. Well worth the cab fare, even if we missed PWEI.
We saw Danny again outside, and talked to him some more. We asked when Halo 10 was coming out. At first, he thought I was asking what "halo" meant, but I soon cleared that up. (Silly Danny, of course I know what halo means. :) ) He said, "10? Is that what we're up to?" Hehehe. He told us that the main reason it wasn't out yet was lack of motivation. Everyone's just been busy, and it's been kinda low-priority. There's a bunch of stuff that could go on it, and they basically just have to decide what would go on it and put it out. He said the Rick Rubin remix would most likely be there. He likes it a lot and was surprised to hear that I had heard it. He told us about a remix of "mr. self destruct" that they had done which starts out "ambient" and then gets even harder than the album version. "It sounds like Pantera!" He said Coil remixed "eraser," and that there are remixes of "ruiner" and "heresy" that are "fuckin' rad." Now that the tour's over, it shouldn't be too long.
I, for one, am really looking forward to this one. I hope all that stuff makes it on.
He then told us that they're planning on putting out a live album as well -- Halo 11, he guesses. The tracks will come mostly from the St. Louis show. He then mentioned how they'd been shooting footage at some recent shows. "Yeah, Dallas and Omaha, right?" "Shit, you guys really do know everything!"
They're going to start recording again soon in New Orleans. He confirmed that it's going to be a collaborative effort, and that there's already some stuff in the works. He also said that there's plenty of potential for some of it to spin off into side projects, especially if it turns out being something that won't work as Nine Inch Nails. Trent will get some other people in to play and sing, and they'll put it out as something else entirely. An interesting prospect -- though I must admit I wonder if a collaboration can be as good as Trent's earlier efforts....
We really didn't want to seem like we were following them, because by now, we weren't anymore. We decided to go to Pat O'Brien's, this really touristy trendy bar. Not at all a place you'd expect to see nothingers. But who do we see as soon as we walk in? Yup, Danny et al. We just went about our business, though, Tatum showing me the place, me buying a hurricane in souvenir glass in classic tourist fashion, etc.
We were standing in a hallway area, and Tatum says, "Hey, there's Trent!" And sure enough, there he is, about three feet away from me and surrounded by a bunch of people. He escaped into the men's room after talking with some people he obviously knew. We waited for him to emerge, hoping to catch his attention, but when he came out, he was whisked away pretty quickly by the bodyguard. Out the door. Gone. Damn!
I had heard the guard say that he was coming right back, so I thought we should stick around in case Trent came back, too. Sure enough, he did, and I was right there when he came in the entrance. I tapped him on the shoulder, said hello, thanked him, told him how much I appreciated his music and how much I wished I could talk to him about it some time. He greeted me back, said thank you, shook my hand, and moved on to the next person. I was a bit stunned. He was genuinely interested in what everyone had to say to him, stranger or no. As soon as I started talking, he leaned right in so he could hear me. Wow.
We followed him into a smaller room, where he was greeted by a lot of other people. I really wanted to say something more to him, but the atmosphere was not exactly conducive to conversation, which is what I wanted. So I tried to be content just standing next to him and watching as he looked around the room with that cute little smirk he sometimes wears. He soon left though, as quickly as he had come. We decided not to follow him, because he had looked extremely weary.
There were still plenty of his friends around though, so we hung out hoping to talk to some of them. They were pretty approachable. We talked amongst ourselves while waiting for Danny to be done with those occupying his time, and he was glad to talk to us again. He was just so amazingly cool to us the entire night! Us! Little groupie strangers! We went over to Robin, as well. He recognized Tatum from earlier that night. I commented that he looked very tired. He was about to deny it when he started laughing and admitted I was right. He seemed kinda shy in addition to that, so I waved goodbye and wished him luck.
The entire show was pretty awesome. Prick was great (and we finally found out who the Trent look-alike was: Kevin McMahon). I was glad to get to see PWEI, finally, after missing all but the end of their set at Worcester. And for some odd reason, I enjoyed Jim Rose more than last time. (I just love the Enigma.)
Finally nin's set came around. I'll tell ya, I'm glad I was in the stands for this one, because otherwise, I wouldn't have seen so much great stage material. Great overall, though I noticed a few problems. They didn't seem fully together and "on" all the time (Danny later confirmed this), and some songs sounded out of tune. Maybe my ears were just messed up at that point, but I don't think so, because things seemed back in tune again later on in the show. That's okay, these things happen. The movie was incredible (I actually got to see it this time). The "HiS" destruction was great. We didn't get a repeat performance of the Dallas show, though. (Boo.)
HLaH was pretty awesome, especially with all the stage diving and everyone in a pile at the end. Which probably explains the longish delay before the encore. When the Zen Master came out during "Closer," I started laughing my head off, but then I started to worry. I mean, he was really going at it. I was thinking, Trent is gonna have this guy's head. Good thing it's the last show. It was kind of entertaining to see Trent slung around the stage like a ragdoll, but poor guy! Afterwards, he looked so..."violated." I guess "that's what he gets." "How does it feel?" [end of awful puns here] I must say that I don't really like "Closer" live, especially the first half, but that night, the second half was reeeeeeealy great.
What else.... A lot of energy in all the right places. Not much talking to the crowd at all. My throat was sore from screaming and singing along with every song (and the next day, my neck and shoulders killed). I think someone has mentioned this before, but you know you're a true freak when you know all the words to every song -- and not only that, but you know all the ad-libs to the live versions. "Just some flesh caught in this big fucking machine." "I'm jesus fuck on ecstasy," "So what, what the fuck does it matter now?" "And all the world's fucking weight is on my back and I don't even know why," "What I used to think was me is just a fucking memory, looked him right in the eye and waved goodbye," "God of money's not looking for the cure," etc. Mercy me.
One last thing that was very amusing: In the row in front of us were three or four pre-pubescent boys. They were precious little headbangers! and you should have seen them when they spotted Kennedy on the floor. Worse than construction men! The future of America....
After the show, we were itching to use our passes. We went down to the floor and waited, but security soon informed us there was no aftershow; only those with VIPs could go backstage. Everyone else should head to the party, and the rest would be there soon. (Damn.) So we left.
We took our time getting to the party. There were three main areas: downstairs, where no one was, and upstairs, which was divided in two. There was the regular room for us schmoes and the VIP room for the lucky ones. As far as I know, Trent never came out of the VIP room, so I didn't get to see him again. All my hopes...oh well. He might have come out towards the very end (in fact, he had to, in order to get out) but we gave up at about 5 a.m. and went home. In the time we were there, we saw Danny and Robin again, shook Mr. Manson's hand and told him how we enjoyed his show here in Cambridge, saw various others milling about. Tried to talk to Kevin M., but he lived up to his band's name... all I got out of him was "thanks," in response to, "I really enjoyed your set tonight," and "I don't think so," in response to, "Are you guys going to tour?" as he walked away, talking over his shoulder. Okay, I shouldn't be so harsh. I guess he was just in a hurry to get somewhere.
Also met another ninnie (hi, Steve!), which reminds me -- I got exactly two responses to my a.m.nin shirt. One simply said, "Nice shirt," and walked off. The other did the same, but stuck around to chat for a while. Didn't get to meet Podboy. We were upset about that. I liked the food, and the blackened voodoo, and the DJ played John Zorn! Security let me thank him for it. Heh. As we left, we saw Kennedy up on the balcony, throwing beads at the hooting men below, who slung beer cans and plastic cups at her in return.
That's about it as far as the party goes. The invitations were swift. White and rectangular with olive-green print. Faint picture of the spiral underneath these words:
"show up and throw up with nine inch nails and conservative self destruct 94-95 end of tour party [nin logo] at patout's 501 bourbon street (cross street is st. louis) 12:30 am - 6 am this invitation admits one"Here's an amusing thing about the hotel we stayed in (the Hotel le Pavillon, if anyone cares). As we were checking in, the man at the desk asked me if we had ever stayed there before. "No," I said. "Well, then I'd like to tell you that every night we serve a late-night snack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from 10 to 11" (I almost laughed in his face, thinking he's got to be kidding) "so we'd like you to come join us!" "Sure!" I said with a smile, and wondered if they served creamy or crunchy....
Sunday night, before I went out with Tatum and Amanda, we made it a point to visit the snacks. I told Tatum, "If this is a respectable hotel, they'll offer a choice of consistency." But no. Crunchy was all they offered.
This hotel obviously does not know what it's doing.
Ha ha ha.