Nine Inch Nails

On Wednesday I went down to DC with Tim to see the Nine Inch Nails concert. Just outside the venue we bumped into Laurel who was waiting for Kevin to show up, but they had seats and Tim and I were on the floor. We got in, and the opening band kindof sucked. They weren't horrible, but the vocals were annoying. Then, Queens of the Stone Age came out and did a good set. The crowd was still fairly calm at this point; mosh pit here or here, someone jumping up and down like an idiot over there, but nothing big. Then, Nine Inch Nails came on, and the crowd rushed towards the stage like iron filings towards some kind of huge music playing magnet. Than analogy sucked. NIN was great (btw, why isn't there a backwards N key? or is it upside down? I need to know these things.) My only complaints for their set is that they didn't play The Perfect Drug, and they didn't do an encore (ooh ooh, I know what song they could have played.) My complaints for the crowd I was surrounded by run more numerous than that. For starters, everybody was undulating forward and backward like a spring every 10 seconds or so. Since we were all packed up front, this meant that you ran the risk of falling over, which would be bad. My guess is that when everybody rushed to the stage the people in the front just bounced off, sparking the recoil, and that people near the back were resisting being pushed further back, causing the wave to propagate back and forth. I love fluid dynamics, which brings me to my next complaint: fluids. Some kind soul from further up decided that a cup containing some fluid (smelled like beer, had a lime, so I'm going to guess Corona) would do more good to the people further from the stage, so (s)he threw it, and it hit me and the girl who was standing next to me. Nice. Also, on the topic of fluids, there were some really sweaty guys who kept accidentally bumping into people (read, me and those around me,) then continuing to shove people around like some drunk frat-boy version of Chris Farley (RIP) and getting more sweatty. I'm not saying I expect the environment to be entirely sterrile, but if you're going to sweat like a pig, wear something that will soak it up, and try to avoid smearing your sweaty back against people who are only facing your way because you're standing between them and good music. Okay, rant's over, the concert was great.