NIN - Finally!

So here is this long overdue review of Wednesday's NIN gig (my friend Wrath, a much more experienced blogger than I am, told me there was no point posting on something that dated from 5 days ago. But what the heck, I have loads to say about this gig...)

So to start with, the good points. Well first of all, this was awesome! Trent was as full of energy as ever, jumping around and all. The guitarist and the drummer were just as excellent, which is pretty much all I am looking for in a gig.
Also worth mentioning were the lights: Those flying saucers, above the head of each musicians that they kept pushing around, are truly ingenious.

And Hurt. God I love this song. The piano version was truly, truly amazing. I think these 5 minutes only were worth the price of the ticket...

On the low points, for some reason the gig started quite abruptly, with Trent walking onstage with the l;ights still on and some technicians still around. Which is weird. Not major, but weird anyway.
One much bigger problem was the crowd. What the hell was that? The mix of 17 year old girls who had never been to a gig before, goths with spiky necklaces and mosh pit-loving punks clearly didn't work. And that did make the whole experience quite irritating. There was a lot of kicking to do, let's say...
Finally, I must stress out that there was no encore, which I find a little bit rude. Trent did say he had problems with his voice (a gig was actually cancelled a few days ago at Birmingham), which is probably the reason, but still.

I keep wondering since then, are NIN really gaining from playing small venue? I do have a better recollection of the last time I saw them, at a festival in France 2 years ago. The more I think of it, the more I believe they are more suited for bigger venues. This should come later, after the album's release...