This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
Editor's Note: This is a guest preview by Matt Graupman, my cousin and the awesome dude behind Spinadoo Comics, a comic blog and home of the daily journal strip "Stay-At-Home Matt." He can be reached through his site or at spinadoocomics@gmail.com.
Although they were definitely not the best years of my life, there are certain things that remind me of high school: Starter jackets, Batman: The Animated Series, sexual frustration, electronica (remember when that was supposed to be HUGE?), etc. But one of the most vivid reminders I have of high school is The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. Picture this: I'm sixteen years old, with my newly shaved head and my first serious girlfriend, staying late after school to paint sets for the school musical (Hello Dolly), trying not to get paint on my brown corduroy pants and listening repeatedly to that vicious album on my worn Discman (with no skip protection). Yup, I was bad-ass. But how could you not love that record? For a pissed-off white kid from the suburbs, it was the ultimate. From the what-did-he-say lyrics of "Closer" to the straight-outta-hell banshee wails that open "The Becoming" (along with its killer Adrian Belew acoustic guitar solos) to the hopeless finale of "Hurt," it was a masterpiece of angst. Hell, even my dad liked the instrumental "A Warm Place" (of course, I didn't tell him that it was Nine Inch Nails). Cliched as it may be, The Downward Spiral helped define my teenage years.
That was fifteen (!) years ago and in that span, Nine Inch Nails (alright, let's be honest, we mean NIN mastermind Trent Reznor) has grown into a hugely influential band. Having helped usher industrial music into the mainstream (score) and nurtured along the career of goth shock-rocker and absinthe-freak Marilyn Manson (fail), Nine Inch Nails have dedicated the last couple of years to inducing crying fits in the kind of record label executives that own private yachts and can't distinguish Ryan Adams from Bryan Adams. You see, NIN have embraced the internet like a frat boy at last call; they are all over it. In addition to releasing their last two albums, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip, as tiered pay-what-you-want downloads through their website, Reznor and company have uploaded song masters for their fans to remix as well as hundreds of hours of raw hi-def concert footage for free editing. First among all their nancy-pants peers, Nine Inch Nails continue to push the boundaries of music as a creative pursuit, a business, and a technological platform. Oh, and their current tour with Jane's Addiction is dubbed the NINJA Tour which is so freakin' cool that I peed myself a little.
With NIN's recent out-pouring of material and Reznor's surprise engagement, rumors have been floating around the illustrious Blogosphere that Nine Inch Nails will soon disband for the dreaded "indefinite hiatus." Reznor himself has even hinted that he intends to settle down a bit and spend more of his time in the studio. With that in mind, Bonnaroo may be one of your last chances to see the band for quite a while. So go dig out your best black t-shirt, download their newest albums (if you haven't already), and head down to Manchester. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go Sharpie marker that backwards "N" logo on my Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars. Hello, Dolly!
Nine Inch Nails will play the Which Stage on Saturday night/Sunday morning from 1-3 a.m. Check out the full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
