after a few days of getting up buttfuck early to be at work at 6am and going to a concert last night, my body really needed a good rest. waking up late (past 9am) was so nice today then i just kept sleeping. going to the concert last night was hard. even though i've been going in at 6am, there's not much time for me to catch my breath and things always seem to be too hectic when my 8 hours are done that i have to do overtime. not yesterday man, i made sure to get out of there 8 hours on the dot! i took a nap, ate dinner, and then we were off to see bauhaus and nine inch nails at irvine meadows. (i'm never going to call it by it's corporate sponsored name.) when i bought tickets, i thought for sure bauhaus would be headlining. seniority rules. but no, nine inch nails is headlining! excuse me, but i remember when nine inch nails opened up for peter murphy. now the entire band is together and they're the opening act?!?!!? hmph!

going to a show at irvine meadows is always madness. the place holds 15,000 people or so. you can imagine the line of cars and the large parking lot. on top of that, the architects made sure it was a bitch and a half to get to your seats but that beer is available for purchase around every corner. you have to walk a long way in the complex and then hike up some hills without stairs or railing to hold onto. (drunk ass jack and jill went up the hill and then came crashing down.) thank god our years of schooling at ucsc prepared me and my friends for this! while walking from the parking lot to our seats, we missed the first 2 songs. well, we heard them. we just didn't watch them in their entirety. in fact, we missed watching the first song altogether. once we could see the stage, the party of the first part stood there and caught their collective breaths for a moment while waiting for the party of the second part. (yes, i'm going to make bauhaus references all entry long if the mood strikes.)

it was a bit perverse to watch them outdoors and in daylight but then the sun started to set and eventually the moon came out (though during nine inch nails i think). at least i can now say that i have seen kevin haskins in shorts! bauhaus were good but there was no magic, i'm sorry. perhaps it was the setlist choice and that their total time was much too short. twiddle thumbs was disappointed as all hell that they did not play "bela lugosi's dead". i'm ok that they didn't play it but david j did not have to tease us at the very end by playing the first 3 notes of the song before he walked off the stage, the cunt! i just don't think any band should be required to play a certain song at every concert. i was a bit puzzled that they keep doing that damn dead can dance cover and especially because it was sandwiched inbetween 2 new songs. i haven't been keeping up and didn't know they have been doing new songs. i wasn't into "adrenaline" but "endless summer of the damned" was good. plus, i've never really dug "rosegarden runeral of sores". whenever that song comes up on my player i hit skip. daniel ash had mic issues and was getting pissed off so "in fear of fear" ended up being only an instrumental while peter murphy kept vocalizing "oh oh oh". or perhaps that's how i interpreted it and peter had no intention of singing it. by the way, peter's new look resembles nick cave with sideburns.

setlist:
double dare
in the flat field
god in an alcove
she's in parties
adrenaline
severance
endless summer of the damned
silent hedges
in fear of fear
rosegarden funeral of sores
stigmata martyr
dark entries

finally it was nine inch nails's turn to take the stage and this is what the crowd (crowds!) had been waiting for but not us. i haven't seen nine inch nails in 12 years so i figured it was time once again. i first saw them play in 1991 right at the same venue during the first lollapalooza. that performance solidified me as a fan. however, "the downward spiral" started to break it. at the time, i just thought it was poorly done. i didn't like the song order nor the e.q. mix. i especially thought "closer" was a piece of crap. (what happens when the intoxication of success has evaporated?). i didn't understand why it became a single and so popular. just goes to show you that the masses will buy crap if it contains immature titillations such as the line 'i want to fuck you like an animal'. why didn't they purchase en mass the earlier works? lyrics too rife with hints of homosexuality? anyway, that's enough of the past. i've heard the last few nin albums but they suck. the last decent thing trent wrote was "burn" but his small man syndrome took over and he focused on pumping iron instead of songwriting. he found a setting in pro tools and stuck with it. shame. the highlights were that nin played old songs that i love and that peter murphy came out and joined the band for a song. it was also nice to see twiggy again not being twiggy. "the hand that feeds" sounds better live than on the album. other than that, i'm not sure what to say for the newer material other than it's time to branch out.

some of the stage lighting was cool but most of it was so music program visualizer crappy. the audience was intoxicated with special effects by loonatik and drink so they lavished every minute. we were quite annoyed by the audience members around us. we paid to hear the band not your shit karaoke rendition. they were the type of fat ugly girls whom no one pays attention to so they are loud and obnoxious at concerts in order to have someone finally notice them. then there was the mandatory dumb white girl in front of us who kept dancing on her seat and falling off. thank you for the laughs. no thank you to everyone who spilled their liquor. no thank you to smoking all manner of substances. no thank you to the smell of bbq in the air. it was making us sick. no thank you to the fuckwit that put bauhaus shirts at only 1 merchandise booth. no thank you to the merchandise booth workers who were slower than dmv workers.

setlist:
somewhat damaged
you know who you are?
terrible lie
march of the pigs
something i can never have
closer
burn
gave up
pinion
non entity
even deeper
only
wish
la mer
into the void
the big come down
suck
down in it
hurt
final solution [with peter murphy]
the hand that feeds
head like a hole