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Well, you know you are in for a treat when the opening act is one of Tom Morello's many little projects. Absolutely absurd. I guess I should start a little before that though...

I ended up walking in the presale entrance around 5:00; moments after I got in, the presale crowd was treated to Nine Inch Nails's sound check. Though we couldn't see the band, we could hear them crystal clear. They played:

- Meet Your Master
- 1,000,000
- Something I Can Never Have

And yes, these were three songs they did not play during the set. WIN! We were finally let in sometime after 6:00, I immediately moved to the front of the pit, dead center... about 2 people back from the rail. Street Sweeper Social Club was already set up (and had sound checked one song a few minutes before we were let in). They had their massive banner up which looked pretty cool.

They came on at 7:00 rather than the initially stated 7:30. They opened with Fight! Smash! Win! They played Paper Planes by M.I.A. (AWESOME COVER), Nobody Moves (Untill We Say Go), The Oath, and a few others that I can't remember them name of. My favorite song was by far 100 Little Curses, but it didn't hold a candle to the solo Morello performed at one point. Brilliant opener.

Breakdown and setup for NIN did not last that long and NIN got on pretty quick. Might I add, seeing them during the daylight and having the sun set during the show is brilliant. Trent comes out in... shorts? I suppose it can be forgiven:

- Now I'm Nothing (First time played since 91)
- Terrible Lie
- Sin
- March of the Pigs
- Piggy
- The Frail
- The Wretched
- Discipline
- Head Down
- La Mer
- The Good Soldier
- I Do Not Want This (First time played since 95)
- The Downward Spiral
- Non-Entity
- Lights in the Sky (Live Debut)
- Wish
- Physical (First time played since 95)
- The Hand That Feeds
- Head Like a Hole
- Hurt (Encore)

Oh yes, you're seeing that right. Now I'm Nothing into Terrible Lie. INSTANT energy from the crowd. A pit immediately opened up and kept up through Piggy. Very impressed. The set was all around solid. Trent came down into the crowd a bit during Piggy and left a mic down there for people to finish off the song (I'm sure most people hated it, I thought it was hilarious... oh man the rush in the pit to the center!). During Discipline Robin's guitar fucked up and wow, Justin picked right up and did not miss a beat to fill the song in.

I think my heart stopped a bit when they busted into I Do Not Want This, and the awesome kept going. Loved TDS and Non-Entity. Lights in the Sky was phenomenal and, at least where I was, the crowd seemed really into it. I could only hear a few drunken morons (guys mind you) rambling about their love for Trent and how he shouldn't retire and that they would gladly let him fuck their brains out. Oh and Physical? Get the fuck out of here.

I must say, I really dislike NIN closing off with Hurt... but I REALY loved this version. I guess now that Ilan can play the piano parts and Trent can focus on singing, he can put a lot more emotion into it. It was truly beautiful. Oh and speaking of Ilan, I'm sold... awesome drummer and you can tell he loves every minute of it.

They walked off after that, was kind of wishing for more encore but how the hell can I complain after that set? My only wish is that I would have gotten to see Hersey live (well, scratch that... my only wish is that I would not have been a moron and gone to the WPB show).

Fuck this is getting to be a long review, and I'm trying to keep it short!

So Jane's Addiction... FUCK YEAH. Never thought I would get to see the original lineup live. I'm so glad I waited. Sure, there was a lot of tension on the stage, but goddamn Eric Avery is good. Perry came out all crazy looking and being his eccentric little self, loved it. The crowd seemed quite into it the entire time, and really got into it near the end. I was worried at first, many people filed out, but it filled back up as soon as the lights went down. So the setlist:

- Three Days
- Whores
- Ain't No Right
- Pigs in Zen
- Then She Did
- Standing in the Shower, Thinking
- Been Caught Stealing
- Ted, Just Admit It
- Mountain Song
- Ocean Size

Encore:
- Stop!
- Jane Says

The sound was awesome. I'm still amazed how much Avery's bass cut through the mix. Not too sure about Three Days as an opener, but it picked up with Whores. My highlights would have to be Standing..., Ted, Just Admit It, and Mountain Song (ohhh that bass line, crushing). The encore was also pretty damned good, Jane Says sounded better than I had expected. I was curious to see how JA would follow NIN. I had full faith in them, but I've never seen someone follow NIN... and they pulled it off perfectly in my books. Not remotely disappointed in Trent's choice of letting them close.

Overall, awesome show. Money well spent, I only wish I had done the WPB show as well. If you can see this tour, DO IT. If you can see it more than once... I envy you!

Sat 9 May – NIN|JA 2009

Fri 20 Feb – Crossbreed, Ventana, Irrational, Helltrash, End of the Rope

Showed up for the end of Ventana, not bad. Last band before Crossbreed was Irrational, completely disappointed. On a bill full of industrial metal, why were they there? Hah.

Have to mention it, they had some Star Wars Cantina music on before Crossbreed, win.

Here is Crossbreed's setlist as far as I can remember, pretty sure it's in the right order/has everything... but I may be wrong.

Kill Everything (New Song)
Severed
Beg
Pure Energy
Nothing (New Song)
Hollow (New Song)
Painted red
Seasons

It was a pretty small crowd, and not really that energetic in my opinion. Didn't help that some douchebag ruined the mood around the pit the minute Crossbreed started by flipping out and throwing punches at some guy that knocked into him.

Not sure I would have opened with a new song, but it was a pretty solid song. Once Severed started, everyone was more into it. Really dig the newer stuff live, Hollow was awesome. I hope it hits off as the new single. The sound wasn't the greatest, I think Crossbreed had too much going on and too loud for the acoustics there (hah).

Perhaps once their new CD comes out, and a new single comes out they will build up their fan base again and we can have some larger crowds.

Oh and the show was over at 10, wayyy too early. Guess Firestone had a ladies night going on and the show was scheduled to get over really early.

Fri 13 Feb – Disturbed, Sevendust, Skindred

I really hate to do a negative review of the show... but this one deserves it. By far the most absurd venue I've ever been to. Started with the pathetic parking situation (yes, let's park everyone out in a field with no lights but charge them $10... not to mention let's have little old ladies taking money and chit-chatting everyone for a minute or two before letting them through... leading to traffic being backed up on the main road).

We walked up to the Will Call line a little before 7:00PM... and finally got inside the at 8:30PM. Ended up missing Skindred even though we got there at 7PM (from what we could hear, they only played like 15 minutes anyways). Absolutely ridiculous. They had what I understood to be two lines, one for will call and one for normal tickets. Both were equally large and equally slow. They had two guys doing will call; they had a ton of papers with very small print with names in alphabetical order... except the morons mixed the papers up so nothing was in order! So finding one name took far longer than it should have, not to mention the two guys seemed to spend a good bit of time talking rather than moving the line. Spoke to a security guard, said it's the norm for this place!

We got inside finally, it was interesting looking place. Large high school auditorium staged risers for people to stand on and a wooden "dance" floor. Sevendust of course put on a good show, the sound was mediocre at best. It wasn't bad, it was just very muffled. The place was not designed for concerts, miserable acoustics. The setlist seemed incredibly short. During Enemy I think it was they turned on all the house lights (9:00PM even). I'm not sure if that was a signal to wrap it up or what. The setlist was incredibly short compared to the other dates this tour.

Inside
Denial (Full)
Clueless
Suffocate w/ Extended Intro
- Jam Session (2-3 Minutes) -
Enemy
Rumblefish (Full)
Face To Face

We stayed for a few of Disturbed songs. David's voice didn't sound that great this time around; he seemed tired, but that may have been the venue. It wasn't near loud enough in my opinion. We weren't really into it, so we decided to miss the traffic at the end of the show by leaving early.

Lesson Learned: Morocco Shrine Fails.

So whenever I'm going to see a show in St. Pete... I always end up being late due to crazy traffic. Needless to say, my luck didn't let me down! There was a crash on the Howard Frankland Bridge. 275 was backed up like crazy. Let's just say it delayed our trip an extra 2 hours.

We got there around 8:30 and Soulidium was just about to go on. So I'd imagine the show was delayed from it's 6:00 start in the first place. I was very happy with Soulidium's performance. I think they sounded awesome acoustic. Next up was Society Red, while I think their normal music is a bit better than their acoustic, they still put on a good show. They finished up with a nice cover of Alice In Chain's No Excuses.

Parabelle was on next. I'm not a huge Evan's Blue fan and I really didn't enjoy Parabelle... they did seem to play for quite a long time though, 6-8 songs if I recall. Taproot came out... and only did 3 songs, I was very confused. Every other band played more than 3, it seems like their set was cut a little short. Perhaps to get HDMS on stay before 11:30? No clue what happened there. They sounded pretty good though.

So onto Hello Demons..meet skeletons! The lineup was as follows:

Clint Lowery (Sevendust, ex-Dark New Day): Vocals/Guitar
Corey Lowery (Dark New Day, Solo): Vocals/Bass
Morgan Rose (Sevendust): Drums
Gogi (Dear Enemy): Guitar

If I recall correctly they played all of the HDMS songs, Dark new Day's Storm, Corey's Shouldn't Be Alive, NIN/Cash's Hurt, a U2's Pride (In The Name Of Love), and two Sevendust songs. LJ came out mid-set to do X-mas Day with them. The last song ended up being Angel's Son; LJ came back up on stage and John came up to replace Gogi (Vince was still hung over it seems, haha). I was hoping to hear Kicking Tree (as were a few others in the crowd it seemed), but nada. Shame!

The guys sounded awesome. It was a real treat to hear Morgan doing Clint and Corey's songs. Supposedly he had just learned most of them the day before, couldn't even tell. He sounded awesome (a bit too loud in some parts), even more so when he got on the bongos/congas/etc. Clint seemed a bit nervous at first but seemed to get into the groove during the first few songs. Corey seemed to be having a lot of fun, it was nice to hear Corey and Clint switch off on vocals. Overall, awesome show. Glad I could be a part of it.