R.O.O.T. Webzine

Gap time at work matching perfectly Nine Inch Nails’ asian tour dates ? Too good to be true.

I had been planning some holidays in Japan for a while, and what could have been better than a NIN show to add to it ? The answer was, a couple more hours of flight time and three shows : Tokyo, Singapore and Taipei, for what would be my first groupie holidays ever. After all, it’s not everyday you hear that a monster like NIN is waving goodbye.

I had been hearing a lot of the Summersonic festival beforehands. I must say I wasn’t disappointed, if a bit frustrated because I only had a one-day pass in Tokyo. I had to schedule my flights to be in time for Singapore, and gave up on the Osaka show thinking not sleeping in between three shows of NIN was a not-so-good idea after all.
Let’s say it first of all, Summersonic IS huge. Werchter, in Belgium, had me prepared to that kind of events, but replace fields by beaches, main stage by baseball stadium, and you’ll understand what I mean. I came there a bit after 1pm, misjudging the time needed to commute from central Tokyo to Chiba : NIN’s asian tour date tee-shirt was sold out already, as well as half of the festival’s own merchandise, and people were already happily roaming in between the five different stages. My plan for the day was to look around while waiting for NIN, and go on with Aphex Twin that was scheduled to play right after my favorites. I had an hotel in central Tokyo and wasn’t planning to come back before the sun had risen and i got kicked out for not having the next day’s wristband.
It was my first concert in a baseball stadium. Spectacular. Passed the disappointment of not being on the right side of the pit (I have the habit of sticking in front of Robin Finck in NIN’s concerts, but the wristband guy assigned me to the left side of the stadium after a few missed tries of communication), I went in and enjoyed the last songs by the Boom Boom Satellites. The sun was getting low when they stopped playing, and I managed to move up front a few rows when their fans left the pit. And here they were, Trent in the middle, clenching on his mic, singing the first verses of Somewhat Damaged. A surprise for me – I was used to waiting for the rise of Pinion. It felt good catching up. The night was falling and the weather turned to slightly rainy, which was actually quite welcome since the tokyoite air was so dry and hot, especially in the pit. By the time it got entirely dark though, the rain became quite heavy, making me wish i had tiny wipers on my glasses ; and by March of the Pigs, it had become a freaking storm. A member of the crew filmed the flood and shared it on Twitter : liters of water pouring down from the sky, thunder, and hundreds of fans soaked to the bone refusing to leave the pit. “Now this is starting to look like a f’cking Nine Inch Nails concert”, declared Trent, making fun of the unfortunate ones that would choose to abandon the pit – and adding that we hadn’t seen anything yet. And he was right. I remember everything that happened next in blasts of light and sound, sweat turning to steam, making my glasses blurry. Smiles and wide opened eyes of my neighbours, wet slashes of headbanging hair ; tightly jumping crowd on the big hits, howling, furious and exhalted. My eyes eventually stopped trying to discern anything more than shapes and strokes of color, and i just gave away to the sound all around me. Finally, the storm had calmed down for Hurt, and a hundred of raindrops had turned into stars on my glasses. Lights shut down, leaving me soaked and happy, in a daze, wondering where i could have had time to wave goodbye.
Of course I didn’t see Aphex Twin that night. I remembered the hard choice on the bridge from the stadium to the Messe, where I finally chose to drip to the closest hotel. I had my arms that were doing flip-flop – and so were my shoes, more literally. You can imagine that checking in the nearby four star hotel soaked from head to toes was priceless (as they say, for the rest, there is mastercard). I spent a few hours trying to dry my clothes before giving up, sit on the bed and stare in the nothingness with a dumb smile on my face. Everything felt unreal. Especially the fact i’ll have to wave goodbye for good in a few days – i was feeling like i had just begun to catch up.

TEXT & PHOTOS: Sophie Burie

A NIN ON TOUR JOURNAL PART II >>