Lights in the Sky

Saskatchewan sure does have a lot of sky. It is oftentimes awesome. Our friend David stopped in Regina on his tour across Canada. The sky put on a couple great displays. But the sky last Monday was super duper awesome. It was like the Red Sea, both because it looked like the clouds were parted and because the clouds were red. Parted red clouds. It was cool as hell. It was nice to look at as Cory and I drove to Saskatoon.

Cory and I were driving to Saskatoon to see Nine Inch Nails' Lights in the Sky tour.

I have seen NIN in concert once before. I enjoyed the music, but the stage show was a little lacklustre.

That was not the case this time. Their show is great to look at. But I'll get to that.

First: as Cory and I ate dinner, I'm pretty sure I saw Amy's mother. She was sitting at the booth behind us. I didn't say hello to her because she was talking to her friend. I never know what to do in those situations.

Pretty sure I saw Carey Ceselski (sp?) at the concert. Didn't go up to say hello, because I wasn't totally sure it was him. We were about to maybe say hello to him when two older, drunken nurses tried to pick us up. That was awkwardly awesome.

Less awesome was The Bug, the opening act. The Bug is a dude in a heavy coat and a hoodie who fiddles nobs as a larger black lady, all the way from London, rapped. Here is what she rapped about: how 'ardcoah she is. "Me is outa me muva fukkin 'ead!" Repeat that ad nauseum whilst feedback screeched and squelched.

Woo.

But NIN was awesome! There were three huge screens above the stage. One behind the band, one midway through the stage, and one near the front of the stage. They would lower and raise throughout the set. There was all kinds of cool stuff going on on them. A lot of visualizers that reflected the music that was being played. In real time. And there were small cameras around the stage that could be thrown up on to the screen.

Everything, the sounds and the visuals were all distorted all to hell. In a good way.

This concert really made me understand what industrial music is about. It is all there in the name. It is industrial. It treats music as an object: a thing to be assembled and disassembled and reassembled.

It was kind of mind blowing.

Thanks Cory.