What a great night.
I ended up picking up eight floor tickets so my wife, myself, and six other friends could go. The tickets we bought were taken pretty quickly, as it's not often a band of this caliber makes it to little ol' Lexington! One of the ladies I work with bought tickets for her and her husband, so we decided that we should all meet out somewhere, grab a few beers, some food, then head to the show. We met at the local watering hole (Cheapside Bar & Grill), ate, drank, and headed to Rupp Arena for the show.
We missed about half of the opening act, but from what I heard of them, I wasn't too unhappy about that. It's not that they were bad, just not my kind of music. They didn't seem to have any energy on stage and were just kind of blah... but hey, that's not who were were there to see.
All of that nonsense was forgotten when NiN came on stage. They nailed "March of the Pigs", "The Day the World Went Away", "Even Deeper", and "The Hand That Feeds". I was completely stoked that they actually played the complete song "Beside You In Time" - I never thought I'd hear that one in concert! "Wish" was great too, one of my personal favorites.
A couple of things bothered me, though. They seemed to completely bone "Only", which was dissapointing. I'm also not sure what to think about Reznor's political motivations that seem to be seeping into his music... I mean, he did a PETA commercial for fuck's sake. The whole hating Bush, hating war, hating animal cruelty is something new from him, and will take a while to get used too, I suppose. Hey, as long as he keeps singing about hating god, hating himself, and hating everyone else, it works for me. Also, he couldn't sell the place out, which amazed me. Not that many seats were on sale - Rupp Arena's not that big. Hopefully that won't impact a decision about coming back in the future, but I'm afraid it will. I still feeling like Lexington was a scheduling fluke anyways. Heh. Oh, and I can't believe that I went to a NiN concert and didn't hear Hurt. Wasn't really upset about it, but it's worth mentioning.
We saw them on their original tour in Altanta at the Tabernacle. That show was simply amazing, and we were extremely lucky to get tickets - from what I heard, it sold out in under ten seconds. The energy and power behind that show was unmatched, but this was almost as good. I wish I could go see them tonight in Cincinnati, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. Damn work.
Thanks for coming to Lexington, Trent!