In This Twilight

Nine Inch Nails @ The Target Center, 2008.11.25

This show was an excellent example of nihilistic [1] postmodern-rock. A visceral (even Dionysian) experience with Josh Freese pounding the drums.

Setlist:
1,000,000 / Letting You / Discipline / March of the Pigs / Head Down / The Frail / The Wretched / Closer / Gave Up / The Warning / The Great Destroyer / 5 Ghosts I / 21 Ghosts III / 19 Ghosts III / Piggy / The Greater Good / Pinion / Wish / Terrible Lie / Survivalism / 31 Ghosts IV / Only / Down in It / Head Like a Hole

ENCORE: Echoplex / Good Soldier / Hurt / In This Twilight

[1] In this sense I mean the aesthetic intent of the content, and not the quality of the overall content itself as I discussed earlier.

Cool as November

This month we finally see the DVD releases of the three greatest tours of 2007-2008,with performances from The Police, Rush and Dream Theater.

First is Dream Theater's Chaos in Motion. The DVD is not the greatest quality, but it does capture the latest tour of very intense progressive rock. Most notable is Surrounded 07 as it's extended and Marillionized, with a part of Sugar Mice added.

After a year of waiting for the alleged DVD release from The Police, Certifiable shows the band in a new light. The maturity of their musicianship comes out, with each individual contributing more color to the music with subtle variations in fills and accents. Much more dynamic than The Police of 1983. The only thing I could ask for (given that this might really be the final chapter of the legend) is a little more material from the other legs of the tour. It would be nice to see the performances of the rare opener Bring on the Night as wells as Spirits in the Material World, and Demolition Man. Also, the final show would have been a great occasion to be documented, containing the first real cover performances from The Police with Sunshine of Your Love, Down So Long and Purple Haze.

Finally, Rush has released Snakes and Arrows Live. Here, everything has been done perfectly. They held off releasing the DVD along with CD live album to record more performances. The third disc contains the songs that were added to the final leg of the tour (including Ghost of a Chance), so we have a complete record of all the songs from this tour.

The last two releases were also done in Blu-Ray, so this might give me the excuse to finally upgrade.

Aesthetic Nihilism (A Polemic)

Quote for the Day:
"When I turn on the radio in 1988, I don't feel anything of the music anymore." - Mike Peters, The Alarm

If this was true in 1988 (and I certainly don't think it was) then twenty years have made this statement much more true, as music has had 20 years of exponential decay. Now, well into the 21st Century, not only is the musicianship itself quite bad, there isn't anything intelligent being said, and further there is nothing to feel. With the visceral element removed, in any aesthetic sense, music has truly become an empty, vacuous experience, with no other result than a mind-numbing daze. In 88, we only had to survive glam metal (which was thankfully killed by Nirvana), but since the atrocity that is hip-hop "music" became dominant in popular music, it has completely killed the possibility of such music ever having substance again. There is simply no longer any standards of excellence. Everything has become just as good as any other thing. Without the virtue of quality, all meaning has been lost or become incomprehensible, and the aesthetic of modern music has become nihilistic. But, as Mike Peters went on to say, "I'm out to fight those songs with every ounce of breath in my body."



Revised 2008.11.24