Who:
Nine Inch Nails, Die
Warzau, Chem Lab
Where: The Academy, New York
When: January 24, 1991
The last time I went to the Academy, a
venerable Broadway theatre across the street from the New York Times, the place reeked of urine from the homeless men who
and taken up residence in the absence of plays. Since the Butthole Surfers were
performing, the miasma was somehow fitting. For Nine Inch Nails, I was hopping
the place had been disinfected, even if the theme of the evening was the stench
of post-modern culture, All I smelled were fresh sweat spilled beer and
cigarette smoke, so I give the Academy’s janitors an enthusiastic thumb up.
Chem Lab had a Stooges-in-a-groove approach
that held everyone’s interest far better than the average bottom of the bill. Their
singer inspired the question, “What’s this guy’s problem?” which was the
correct effect for this crowd of alienated – and why not? - college students.
Like most “industrial“ bands was post-industrial. No one played the air
conditioning duet ort he jackhammer, they just had a cabinet of electronic weirdness
and a guitarist with incredibly bad posture.
Die Warzau did not inspire the question, “What is
this guys problem?“ The singer said right up front exactly what it was: the war
in the Middle
East. He
urged everyone not to register for the draft and, by rock n‘ roll exhortation
standards was pretty coherent. Thus where Chem Lab created a late-‘7Os
atmosphere of everyone being random atoms in a meaningless universe, Die Warzau
wanted us to unite and defeat fascism, a friendly ray of solidarity from the
‘60s. Both riff and groove were mostly in the percussion, but couldn‘t tell if it
was by design or accident. The guitarist kept kicking over the keyboard, so some
of their electronic weirdness was apparently not working. The crowd clearly
enjoyed feeling moral while dancing and chanting.
Nine Inch Nails were wonderful. They combined
disco groove with screaming punk catharsis and imaginative song structures.
People danced, and there was nothing “cool” or reserved or hierarchical about
it. Leader Trent Reznor and guitarist Richard Patrick (a shaved wraith covered with
cornstarch) immediately started throwing cups of beer and water at people, dissolving
the invisible wall between audience and performer. I’ve never seen so much
stage-diving outside of hardcore.
“When we turn up the abusiveness we win over the crowd,“ explained
Reznor after the set. “If I see someone staring at us with his arms crossed 20 rows
back, I’d rather hit him with a beer and have him leave hating us for messing
up his new-wave haircut than for him to leave with no reaction at all. What
about security? “Every show is a battle, not with the crowd but with the security
guards. Our crowd isn‘t out to hurt anyone. We don‘t want steroid-crazed
security guards beating up our fans. We prefer a low stage with no barriers and
maximum interaction.“
NIN kept their equipment inside a giant metal
cage that both musician and fan climbed on as the spirit moved them. “We have a
new drummer and he said he‘d kill me if I smashed up his kit like the Who,“
said Reznor, who was quite willing to smash his own guitar. “So the cage is
functional as well as decorative.“
Reznor is adamantly anti-MTV, so your only chance
to see these guys willl be live.
Photograph: Gary Gershoff/Retna
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