After finally making it inside to get my pre-sale ticket (a process that wasn't particularly straight forward as the ticket booth for pre-sales was inside the venue) I have a few beers with some mates, and eventually made our way inside to the main arena. The venue chose not to use the alarm system to notify people when the bands were on stage, so I missed the first 30 seconds of NIN, and by the looks of things it caught a few others out as well.
So I guess Nine Inch Nails won the toss, since they came on stage bathed in purple and blue lighting playing a couple of slower numbers. Things picked up when they got into March of the Pigs and Piggy. They spent the night mostly doing electronic numbers more than guitar based stuff, which was quite interesting to watch, with much swapping of instruments. Burn was a definite highlight of the set for me.
Lighting was great, a few effects I hadn't seen used at a show before, but sadly not the level of quality that we saw on the recent Tension tour. It was a great show, probably about an 8/10, though a better setlist could have quite easily made it higher for me (I was a little disappointed with the setlist we got in comparison to other shows on the same tour).
Me, I'm Not
The Beginning of the End
Survivalism
March of the Pigs
Piggy
Sanctified
Disappointed
Copy of A
Vessel
Hand Covers Bruise
Beside You in Time
1,000,000
Letting You
Burn
Wish
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like a Hole
Hurt
After a 30 minute interval, Queens of the Stone age came on stage with a large video screen accompanying them. The video screen seemed a little under utilised to me, especially considering how much video has been created for the new album. The fact that it seemed to be switch on part way through some songs made me wonder if there were some kind of technical problem. Anyway, it didn't make much difference to the show - the members of QOTSA are all quality musicians, so the real joy of watching lies there. Not surprisingly the set was much more upbeat than NIN, with A Song For The Dead being the standout for me. As much as I love Like Clockwork, I felt a few tracks from that album didn't really come across live as well as I'd like.
You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire
No One Knows
My God Is the Sun
Burn the Witch
Smooth Sailing
3's & 7's
Do It Again
…Like Clockwork
If I Had a Tail
In My Head
Fairweather Friends
Little Sister
I Appear Missing
I Sat by the Ocean
Make It Wit Chu
Sick, Sick, Sick
Go With the Flow
The Vampyre of Time and Memory
A Song for the Dead
My main gripe with Queens was that the sound was pretty average for most of the set. Doubly disappointed since the NIN sound was basically flawless. Overall, another good set, just short of being amazing. I think I had a better time during QOTSA than NIN, but only just.
Here's a couple of shitty photo/video grabs:
[BBvideo 612,612]http://distilleryvesper6-6.ak.instagram ... 62_101.mp4[/BBvideo]
[BBvideo 612,612]http://distilleryvesper2-6.ak.instagram ... 72_101.mp4[/BBvideo]
This is only the second time I have ever seen these guys and I feel like I have missed out really. Some bands are just that cut above - in the masterclass and Trent hits it.
