Thursday, December 4th, 2008

This Wasn’t Meant To Last…

So, a few of you apparently realize that I dig the Nine Inch Nails.  (I don’t know how anybody would figure this out, but what’re you gonna do).

Anyway, something interesting happened this morning. Trent Reznor (who is Nine Inch Nails, as the liner notes for Pretty Hate Machine remind you) updated his blog on the band’s website with an entry about how he’d wanted to film their current tour in James Cameron’s new 3-D system, so they could release it in theatres and on video. It didn’t happen (thanks mostly to Interscope Records, it sounds like), but the pot-stirring nugget was at the bottom of the entry:

This was an amazing tour and production – certainly the best thing I’ve ever been involved with and likely the final tour for NIN on this scale…

The shows we have announced in 2009 and any more that may be announced will be a completely different approach with some different personnel and will likely be the last for the foreseeable future.

Yep. Nine Inch Nails. One of the best live shows you’ll ever see. Getting ready to call it a day on the big venue rock n’ roll touring thang.

When I first read this, I was bummed out; Nine Inch Nails is a band I came to love right in college as I entered a massive period of transition in my life, and Reznor’s music helped me get a handle on feelings I didn’t know what to make of at the time.

Music is great like that; it’s one of the things that makes it such a unifying art form. And live shows, for me, have always been a way of tapping into that emotional immediacy you identify with certain pieces of music.

On the other hand, I was also excited by the news. Touring has got to be grueling, no matter how successful the artist. And I’ve got to believe that at this point, playing “Head Like A Hole”, “Hurt” and “Closer” aren’t the joy they once were; you play those kind of songs because they’re what people expect when they go see NIN — you don’t play them because they’re what excited you.

And for some of us that have been seeing Reznor play live shows for 15 years or longer, I think it’s safe to say that many of us cherish the moments in between the standards — the new and surprising moments of a live show — rather than the standards themselves.

This last tour pushed the audience in ways I didn’t expect, with selections from both the Year Zero and Ghosts I-IV records. It’s rare that an artist is able to, in the middle of a show, completely switch up the way in which they’ve contextualized themself and make it work. Some people grumbled at the shows I saw when the instrumental Ghosts sections came around; for me, they were the highest of the highlights. A moment when the live experience ceased to be about the lyrical literalism concerts lean toward — audiences chanting “Fist Fuck” in unison — and instead became an organic experiment in mood and texture. Moments of real musical exploration, that required those of us in the audience to not simply recite the songs we already knew in our head, but to stop and listen.

I’m not sure what the next phase of Nine Inch Nails will be, live or otherwise.  And I’m not ignorant to the reality that these grand tours are extraordinarily expensive to put on, and given that Reznor is footing the bill himself there may be a fiscal component to this decision. But I do know, that while Trent Reznor has brought his career and music and band back from the dead over the past four years, he hasn’t done things the easy way. He didn’t simply put up the stage show from The Fragile days, and run it into the ground playing shows for $150 a seat. He didn’t release a Greatest Hits with one new song to justify an extra year of touring. He’s kept putting out records (some fun, some challenging), he’s experimented with new methods of distribution, and tried to find new ways to engage his fans — all the while being mindful of pushing himself creatively, so he never finds himself in the Mick Jagger “Satisfaction” trap.

So while yours truly is excited and nervous (terrified?) about the transition gauntlet I’m about to enter, I’m excited to see that one of my favorite artists is looking to close one door for himself, to see where the next one will lead him.

I may like it. I may hate it. But that’s really incidental. The truth of it all is that artists create. It’s what they do. And each and every strong artistic voice out there following its path and pushing hard to redefine and refine itself is a boon for each and every one of us, no matter what we think of the work itself.

So cheers, Mr. Reznor.  It’s been a blast being on the trip thus far, and I look forward to whatever comes next.