NIN/JA @ starlight theater
Take a few beers, a nice night, a great venue, excellent sound balance, and two big time, named bands and what do you get… If you hadn’t guessed already…. a damn fine show.
I was lucky enough to go to the show in Columbia last winter with a friend from work. NIN rocked the stage and I probably saw the best lights and technology show, bar none. However this wasn’t that kind of show. NIN decided that they were announcing this as the final tour and with that annoucement came a smaller light set and smaller set list, too.
Another point to be made was that NIN played first, then Jane’s Addiction. This surprised most people after they showed up since they expected NIN to be the headliner. This also meant that NIN would be playing an outside show while the sun was still on the horizon. I think this might be another reason for the smaller stage setup as well.
Either way though, you had to like a show that was less about lights and more about music. NIN does not fail to disappoint.
One other band I should note is the opener for these two bands, Street Sweeper Social Club featuring Tom Morello as the guitarist and some guy who wishes he was Lenny Kravitz. Keeping it short on this band, I will sum it up as this…Tom Morello can play and make some crazy ass sounds on his guitar. I cannot refute his ability there, but the song quality is less than stellar. There is a reason that Chris Cornell was quoted saying “…writing like I was in High School…” The songs that SSSC were basically built to show off Tom’s crazy guitar noises and that was about as deep as it gets. There was one song in there where the lyrics were two words (don’t remember which words) but it was some basic bass line and Tom’s squeaks, while Lenny look-a-like just jumped around and said ‘hey!’ all the time.
Moving on to Nine Inch Nails now…For the opener, they went into to ‘Now I’m Nothing/Terrible Lie’ which they have used for most of their set 
lists so far on this tour. The crowd was pretty pumped and you were able to hear quite a few people singing the “Terrible Lie” portion of the song. NIN played a wide variety of music, hitting at least one tune on all their major studio albums. There were quite a few songs that they had just finished playing for the “Lights in the Sky” tour, but I can’t complain although everyone wishes that they would just keep playing. Everyone has their favorites and they won’t hit them all.
The highlights for me were “Now I’m Nothing/Terrible Lie”, “Hand that Feeds”, “Head Like a Hole”, and “Hurt”. As you can tell, I am more of an old school NIN fan, but I do listen to some of the newer stuff as well. I wish Trent nothing but the best on this farewell tour and I anticipate the next project that he will make in a couple years when he gets bored. 
At this point, there should be a note that a small percent of the crowd left the concert. Obviously they were here to watch Trent and then leave. It worked out for the best though because I should of been able to get out of the parking lot faster…oh wait, I think my car was the last one out…moving on.
After a thirty minute intersession, a screen drops down at the front of the stage, the lights go down, and a movie is played on that screen. Everyone waiting in anticipation as we all thought that Jane’s was coming on the stage. Instead we were treated to a five-to-six minute strange adult film with women taking their tops off and walking some kind of runway. Everyone was looking around going “WTF?”…but in Jane’s like fashion, they roll up the screen and hit you with ‘3 Days’ while you were still left wondering what the hell just happened.
The first thing you notice though is the red lights in the very top left and right corners of the stage, lighting up pictures of the same gal with her top off. Strange…but not that strange if you consider Perry Farrell is the guy running this show. Perry is one strange guy after all and hates to be out of the spot light. In numerous occasions you can see the spotlight on Dave Navaro, while Perry walks toward him with limbs just flying around saying ‘Look at me, everybody!’
However, if you take away that minor discretion, you can tell how good this band is and was, back in the day. They crank it and play it fast and most of the crowd that stayed for Jane’s was loving every minute of it.
Some highlights from this show was the piece during “Ted, Just Admit It” where he was getting very close to the audience and touching/talking to all the women in the front row, telling them how they would get f’d all the way to chicago…LOL Go Perry. I had a friend who was sitting up front in that area and I’m pretty sure he was uncomfortable with the wierdness that is Perry.
Later on in the show, Perry’s karma comes back around while they are playing ‘Summertime Rolls.’ It had been giving us a little bit of mist for a while now and since the stage is covered, it isn’t a big deal. Except when you jump out near the front of the stage on the monitors that have mist on them. Perry jumps up on one and he goes flying, feet straight out, and hits the top of the monitor with his ass, HARD. You could hear the bump through his mic he was carrying. For a second, I thought he was just going to throw in the towel right there since Perry is all ego and for show, but the band kept playing the same eight bars for about 30 seconds while Perry picked himself up, got hiself back on stage and finished the song. I will give props to Perry for this. He could of easily just stopped playing and bailed.
As soon as the song was over, he took off for the left side of the stage, even before the band had stopped playing. As soon as Navaro finished, he tossed his guitar to a roady, then gave us the peace sign and right off the right side of the stage. I had told my gf at this point…OK, this is over…Perry is done since he embarrassed himself.
Once again, he proves me wrong and gets on a mic from the side of the stage, saying “Perry went to the hospital, please exit to the left or right of your seats.” It wasn’t too hard to figure out he was joking and that it was him on the mic, so everyone was just laughing and a couple seconds later, Perry comes running out from the curtains and said, “I have to admit, that f’ing hurt.”
The foursome finished up with ‘Stop!” and then they hauled in the steel drums for ‘Jane’s Says’ while their bassist and Navaro both played acoustically. It was a great ending to a great night.
Nine Inch Nails Set List for Starlight Theater, Kansas City, MO - 5/27/09 Now I'm Nothing Terrible Lie Discipline March of the Pigs The Frail The Wretched Piggy(Nothing Can Stop Me Now) The Becoming Burn Gave Up Echoplex The Fragile The Way Out is Through Wish Survivalism Physical Hand that Feeds Head Like a Hole Hurt
Jane's Addiction Set List for Starlight Theater, Kansas City, MO - 5/27/09 3 days whores Ain't no right Pigs in Zen Then She Did Mountain Song Had a Dad Been Caught Stealing Ted, Just Admit It Ocean Size Summertime Rolls Stop! Jane Says