NINE INCH NAILS
Bauhaus

June 7, 2006
Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheatre
Atlanta, GA

 

Bauhaus:

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What better way to celebrate a warm pre-summer night than with pounding prime Goth. Doesn’t a concert with song titles such as “Rose Garden Funeral Home Of Sores” and “Stigmata Martyr” sound perfect for such an evening? Well, I thought so on this night.

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Bauhaus played a strong, hour long set of mostly classic material. At one point, Murphy took it upon himself to chastise a young lady in the front row for throwing devil horns at him. Then he started throwing roses at her (not in an appreciative way) until she stopped. In addition to Murphy, Daniel Ash added in some squonk-jazz sax as well as playing guitar pristinely. The rhythm section fueled it all with a precision that the New Romantic influenced Brit-bands of today could only envy.

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And to have Bauhaus start out well before sundown only made things more intriguing. It was truly surreal to see Peter Murphy in all of his foppish funeral home director glory in broad daylight. The biggest surprise was that it still worked.

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The Godfathers Of Goth also threw in a couple of new songs. One, called "Endless Summer Of The Damned", was better than most of the old favorites. Of course, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" closed the gig out with Peter Murphy using a cape to create the illusion of being a bat. It was totally over the top and totally effective.

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Nine Inch Nails:

 

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What happened to Trent Reznor? He looks like a friggin’ marine these days! It took some getting used to hearing that voice come out of that body but at least he sounded the same. Nine Inch Nails is now filled out by members of Marilyn Manson, The Icarus Line and A Perfect Circle but you wouldn’t know from listening that it was anyone but the original band members. At the beginning of a crushing “March Of The Pigs”, Reznor tripped over a bunch of monitors and hit the stage hard. He looked dazed for a second before coming up swinging even harder. “Terrible Lie” and “Sin” also had the audience pumped up and shouting along. My only complaint is that there were no real surprises. While it was a nice bit of nostalgia to hear “Wish”, "Gave Up", "Reptile", "Suck" and “Something I Can Never Have”, they’ve lost some of their power from repetition. There are a lot of great songs from With Teeth and The Fragile that were totally ignored. For the record, it’s clear that I was in the minority in wanting the newer material as the fans devoured every crumb. At least NIN threw in (one of my personal favorites) “Burn”.

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I also enjoyed the eye-popping 3-D effect when a metal gate-like screen came down over the front of the stage. With projections against the back video wall, digital lights running across the front "gate" and the band in the middle, it created a dizzying visual that I haven't seen before. Even if it was nothing more than a hybrid of tricks done by Bowie, Pink Floyd, Duran Duran and Alice Cooper, it was nonetheless taken to a different level. And that's what Trent's best at doing. He can take something that's been done and make you believe that he invented it. (As evidence, a late show crowd favorite was his version of Queen's "Get Down Make Love".) The evening wound up with another shout-a-long for "Head Like A Hole". While NIN 2006 isn’t as masterful or cathartic as any of the legendary Downward Spiral shows, it was still one of the best of '06.

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All photos and reviews by Chris McKay / concertshots.com

 

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