Back from Nine Inch Nails, Zénith Paris
Coming to the place wasn’t a problem, but once there with Guillaume, we were that close to catastrophe, since the weather entered the place and it started raining. Hopefully, we were already at the external gates and covered. I don’t know how it happened, but those gates were already opened. I thought that the time on the ticket was the gate opening time, but apparently today it was the concert start. Anyway, we were on time, and we only had to run for 50m before reaching the Zénith main gates. Funny thing, once we were inside, one of the songs played before was from Amanda Palmer’s solo album, who I discovered with her bandmate of the Dresden Dolls, 4 years ago, opening for Nine Inch Nails, at the same place.
Speaking of opening, soon entered on stage Mew. And almost as usual, I guess, the first part was due to fail and when Trent Reznor says that they sound good live, I call the bullshit police, because the sound engineer butchered the whole thing (or so I hope). The voice was drowned by the synth and the drums were badly mic-ed. And what about those bongos triggering symbals? And I won’t even talk about the bass player and his wireless cowbell. But anyway, I’m not convinced, just by the voice of the singer. Does he use effects to sing higher? At least, that’s how it sounded (and it reminded of feared viking whatever metal). And they play Fender, which is almost as bad. But at times, I couldn’t figure out if the guitar player was changing his guitar in between songs of if it was one and only song. I tried to like it, but I wasn’t convinced there. They played a short set but they came back (unexpected and unwanted by some) for an encore with a long, nice and slow song.
And then…
It started with Somewhat Damaged and I feared for an instant that we would get the exact same setlist they played at the Olympia, but this was not to be the case. They played a lot from the Spiral and (unexpectedly since during the concert Trent Reznor would say that this was a dark part of his life) from the Fragile: March of the Pigs, Heresy (Yay!), The Becoming (Yay, yay! With Robin playing acoustic), Reptile (oh, dear! And those lights!), Hurt (classical guitar version and no piano, love) from the former (and still no piggy, damned!), Somewhat Damaged, La Mer, The Fragile, The Way out is Through, The Day The World Went Away (where I miss Josh) from the latter. Although we had to endure non-entity, we were gifted with a cover of David Bowie’s I’m afraid of americans, and the the crashing Burn. From PHM, we only got Terrible lie and the usual encore with Head like a Hole. And from Broken, Wish (I still miss Josh :( ), Gave up and Physical (triple-Yay!). From newer albums, we only got to hear The Hand That Feeds and Survivalism, and that’s a bit difficult to understand, mostly with The Slip since it’s almost the same people who recorded it recently that were on stage that night.
It was also the drummer’s birthday and he got his party, with two strippers bringing a nice cake (which, incidentally ended in his hair). Apart from this, there wasn’t that much talk in between songs and it went pretty straight to the point.
No technical difficulties, good setlist, impressive stage work, good crowd. This was a great show!