Cat, who thoroughly enjoyed her attendance at the Paris Zenith concert, wrote us with amazing detail about Thursdays concert. She had so much fun, she tried to sneak back stage by putting the moves on Alec Empire of ATR. To top it all off, she might be submiting pictures of the performance later this week!
The evening started out with an awful performance by Atari Teenage Riot. I've never seen a group who mentions their own name as many times as them in their songs. It was really annoying. The music... it sounded like heavy fusion with lots of feedback. Most of the people had brought earplugs to avoid damaging their hearing before NIN. And the others, well... we just tried to block our ears best as possible.

Then, I noticed someone sitting next to/behind the curtain... Mr. Reznor himself? No... could it be? After a few "Is that Trent over there?""*Omigod, it IS!", we stopped focusing on ATR and stared at Trent the whole time, the occasional Danny and Robin heads popping in. Robin was wearing the cutest red toque!

Finally, 25 minutes later, ATR left. Thank God. After about 25 minutes of Lords of Acid, We all heard a familiar melody... Pinion. Straight into Somewhat Damaged. "You fucking pigs!" March of The Pigs. Piggy. I won't go through the whole setlist, as it was about the same as in the other cities *but they didn't play something I can never have! sniff!* Trent was... absolutely beautiful... bathed in light, sweating like crazy and falling apart on stage. 

Robin Finck.. heh, he was damn sexy tonight. I really like the way he does his makeup and hair. The light show was amazing... The pit was ferocious. People fell on me twice, I got strange hands feeling me up everywhere, I got completely squished, I couldn't even breathe anymore... My arms felt like apple sauce. I couldn't feel them anymore! People were pulling my hair *ow! lâche ça salopard! putaaaaaain!*, so I responded by giving them nice steel-toed kicks in the shins. I was so close, I could've touched him... 

The crowd was ok. I still haven't understood why pushing people around and pulling hair is fun, though. It wasn't a very violent show, with the exception of Trent pushing either Robin or Danny to the floor, I'm not sure, I didn't actually see it with my own eyes *I'm too small!*.

"Gave Up" was amazing. Absolutely fucking amazing. I'd been waiting for it all night... it was the last song I listened to in the pit, as I was getting a bit short of breath and feeling very faint. Bought water and came back, towards the middle this time. This way, I had room to dance and scream and jump and just make a complete fool out of myself, among the calm people who were just nodding their heads. 

They played "Closer" and "Hurt" as an encore, 'Closer' was ok, it sounded the same. 'Hurt', was beautiful. So beautiful I started to cry, because I was sitting on some guy's shoulders the whole time. No one else but me, I was overlooking everyone. I looked straight at Trent *I was about 9 rows back* and felt a strange current run through my body... and I realized he was looking back at me. At that moment, I thought, Ok, I can die happily now, Trent Reznor knows I exist. 

During TDTWWA, Trent stopped and said to us "Even we fuck up too sometimes". No one could understand him but they all cheered and clapped. Then they started to play it again, and screwed up again, and Trent laughed and said "This is the first time this has happened. You better feel lucky" or something like that.

After the concert, which finished around 11:15 , we tried to sneak backstage, because of a friend's sister who was already there with the band, but couldn't... *sniff* ATR walked by, alot of people were screaming "Fuck the police!" and "Revolution Action!". The chick with the weird makeup who takes care of the sound just walked by, not looking at any of us and certainly not speaking to any of us. Alec (Alex?) Empire was nice, though. He walked by and I got closer to him and begged, "Alec!!! Can we come too? Bring us with you!!! Please??" "Nah, sorry, security's too tight.", said he, laughing and smiling. 

It was, with the exception of Atari Teenage Riot, a very good concert. I'd never had the occasion to see NIN live, so it was a good experience, an experience to never forget.

note to SLS: Some friends of mine took lots of pictures from up close, so the minute I have them scanned I'll send them. 

Encore: "The Day the World Went Away," "Starfuckers, Inc.," "Closer," "Hurt"

I was lucky enough to get a really good spot. I was about two people back from the barricade and dead center. When the band came out I was directly in front of Reznor and could see his every move. When the music started there were people around me who didn't realize it was "The New Flesh." They kept screaming that they wanted nine inch nails, until I punched one of them on the shoulder and informed him that this _was_ nine inch nails and could he shut up, please. He shut up. Then we heard "Pinion" for about 10 seconds of sound and the lights dropped. The curtains opened and there was the man himself, Trent Reznor, strumming his guitar for the opening of "Somewhat Damaged."

I can't go into a blow by blow account of the show because it was simply too incredible to describe. I mean, it was an amazing show. After "The Wretched" Reznor went back and got handed a guitar. Then the opening keyboard effects of "Reptile" hit the air and bam! Right into a killer version of the song. For me, that was definitely the highlight of the show. I'd wanted to hear that song so much, and it hadn't really been played on this tour so I wasn't expecting it. An added bonus, definitely. After "Reptile" I crowd surfed out of the front area and walked back a bit to have a little more room. I wanted to dance.

From my new vantage point I had a good view of the projection screen. The images for "La Mer" were intriguing, but I felt that the screen projection for "The Great Below" really detracted from the song. I'd say the projection screen time was the weakest point of the concert, and I was sad that my favorite song on the _the fragile_, "The Great Below" was my least favorite in concert. The sound mixing seemed to be off on that song as well. I can't really explain, but it sounded off.

The rest of the show was one kick-ass experience after another. "Wish," "Into the Void," "Down In It," "Head Like a Hole." I just got down and boogied the rest of the night away while the band tore into these songs and brought them to life with stunning force. After HLAH, they left the stage for a minute or two, then walked back out to do the encore. It was dark up there and then suddenly we could hear "The Day the World Went Away." The lights came up, and then. It stopped. Reznor said, "Hey, once in a while we fuck up, too," and walked back to get another guitar. I suspect he was handed one that wasn't tuned properly or something. (And I'll just bet some roadie caught hell after the show for that boo boo.) When he came back to the front of the stage he said, "That's the first time we ever did that so give us a break," and they started it up again.

I was a little disappointed when that song started, because I was kind of hoping they wouldn't play it. I'd rather hear "Please" or "Even Deeper." But my fears were soon dispelled. I expected a boring point in the concert and no way. After the vocal part, Jerome Dillon just ripped on his drum set, turning the song into something wholly new and facinating. I now consider it one of the best songs of the show, only surpassed, for me, by "Reptile." They followed it up by a good "Starfuckers, Inc." that sent the crowd into a state of feral delirium, and then ended with "Closer" and "Hurt." Reznor opened "Hurt" by saying it was one of their favorite songs.

Then he thanked us all and left. It was over.

After four years of waiting (my last show was at Shoreline Ampatheater in California -- when they toured with David Bowie) I finally got to see my favorite band in action. And they were superb. Fortunately, I still have two more shows to look forward to. So it isn't completely over yet. Even if it had been, I would have nothing to complain about. The show was everything I could ever have hoped for in a life experience.

A few things that I noticed... aside from during "The Day the World Went Away" when he was angry about the mess with the guitar, Reznor was very sedate. He didn't really break anything or assault anybody, which I'd expected. He stayed fairly stationary through the show. He had plenty of energy and seemed to be having a fantastic time, but he was very relaxed throughout. It was really cool. Occasionally he'd throw water on one of the band members or on us, but that was the extent of his wildchild. Oh, and once he threw his microphone into the audience, which was amusing watching a group of human sardines try to move somehow to get at the microphone. That was all.

Afterwards we waited for a while at the stage exit to see if the band would make an appearance, but I gave it up a little after midnight... I was tired, and didn't want to miss the last metro and be forced to walk home in the freezing cold. I'll try and catch them at Brixton. Ah... c'est la vie, eh? 

Atari "Fuck the Police" Teenage Riot began to play right on time at 8:00 PM . But the band has failed in warning the audience, their show seemed not to please to the majority. Just after the begining of their second song, everyone around me was barking telling them to stop... One of the singers jump into the crowd and hardly succeed in returning onstage... Atari stopped its show at 8:30 PM...

At 9:10, Nine Inch Nails got onstage, after the little "Pinion"intro...

They played (in order) :

Somewhat damaged, Terrible lie, Sin, March of the pigs, Piggy, The frail, The wretched, Reptile, No you don't, Gave up, La mer, The great below, The way out is through, Wish, Into the void, Down in it, Head like a hole, The day the world went away, Starfuckers Inc., Closer, Hurt.

Before "La Mer" started, a see-thru screen came down in front of the band. We could no longer see anything onstage but what was lightened behind the screen... This way they could play a video on the screen while we could distinguish Robin Finck playing guitar, and then Trent singing for "The great below". The atmosphere was unique. The video showed blood cells, gamets, cells starting to compose a embryo, flies alive, then dead, worms, and... THE SEA, fish, etc.

The screen lift-up when the band played "The way out is through", at the moment in the song when the distorted guitars come in... The video was at this time a fire that seemed to burn the stage... (the light was on onstage, so we could see all the band behind the fire on the screen)...

The show ended at 11:05 PM. 

The track list was almost the same that the others shows.

Pinion, Somewhat damaged, Terrible lie, Sin, The Frail, The Wretched (the transition between these 2 songs is powerful live), March of Pigs, Gave up, Piggy, Reptile (I was surprised to hear this one, I think it wasn't played in any other European date...and I love it), No, you don't , La mer (You've all heard of the films during these 3 songs, they added perfection to the songs), The Great Below (the guitar at the part of the end of the song seemed more dramatic than on the album) The way out is through (I guess a lot of people think it's called "Underneath it all"), Wish, Down in it, Into the void, Starfuckers inc.(with a long pause after the last calm "don't you..."

Encore:
The day the world went away (with drums added to the end of the song, which ended with the "nahnahnaah" of the quiet version. Before this song, Trent said "This is the first time we play this song" but I thought he already played it in Europe...), Head like a hole, Closer, Hurt (before they played it Trent said "This is one of my favorite songs" the drums by Jerome Dillon were very heavy and it was beautiful) 

For the encore, Trent said "thank you" then "merci" eheheh! Robin Finck jumped twice in the crowd, Trent tried to fuck Danny Lohner 22 songs, a 2 hours show but I still feel time has passed too quickly, now the Fragile album seem very calm to me and I don't think I'll ever see a show so intense again. I forgot to say that the light show was excellent and various, there were the same neons they used during the MTV something awards.