Nine Inch Nails & Soundgarden Concert Report

Nine Inch Nails with Soundgarden at Molson Amphitheatre July 27

This was a reunion of a pairing that occurred 20 years ago at the much-loved Molson Park. At that concert, in 1994, my mum's boyfriend at the time got a concussion from the intense moshing. In the intervening decades, the crowd has mellowed somewhat but the bands are still as powerful as ever. Electronic improviser Oneohtrix Point Never opened with some heavy drones and beats backed by some very impressive abstract visuals. He replaced the habitually unreliable and now dissolved hip-hop/noise duo Death Grips. OPNs music was fairly compelling but was largely ignored by the hard rock-craving masses.

Soundgarden came out strong, sounding entirely undiminished by time, though they are definitely more of a nostalgia act than Nine Inch Nails since their sound is largely unchanged in the last 20 years. Their set was fairly heavy on songs from 1994s Superunknown, an album that is generally considered their best. "Black Hole Sun", their signature hit, was a little disappointing as it was played a bit slow with the vocals in a lower register. Chris Cornell's distinctive high-pitched wail was in full force elsewhere though, especially on the closing song, 1988s "Beyond the Wheel", a song that I was formerly unfamiliar with but that blew me away. They wisely only played one song from their 2012 solid but unremarkable reunion album King Animal, "A Thousand Days Before". The band sounded typically fantastic, with guitarist Kim Thayil playing busy and intricate guitar lines and replacement drummer Matt Chamberlain fitting in seamlessly.

This is my fourth time seeing Nine Inch Nails and considering they're basically my favourite band, it's hard to be too objective but they definitely put on one of the most all-around impressive shows of any band today. As they have a consistently evolving style and often rearrange older tracks, they avoid seeming like a 90s time capsule. Frontman Trent Reznor began the show solo, with just a sequencer on stage for an excellent rendition of "Copy of A" from last year's amazing Hesitation Marks album. The current version of the band gradually joined in for a set that covered all of their albums, save for 1999s The Fragile.

Their set was heavy on the hits but made room for some fully out-there album tracks like "The Great Destroyer", which climaxed with three minutes of abstract electronics. Their use of visuals was stunning, with abstract computerized patterns that reacted to the music. Trent Reznor is still an amazing frontman, though some of their earlier super-angsty lyrics do sound a little silly sung by a  49 year-old man with arms the size of fire hydrants. Their pacing was perfect, finding a balance between rock and electronic, blunt and abstract. Standard closer "Hurt" provided a pleasingly emotional come down after an intense three hours.