NINJA tour 2009 . . .

Okay, fabulous show last night at Verizon Wireless Music Center! First off, Tom Morello and Boots Riley rocked with their new band Street Sweeper Social Club. They opened the show and the crowd definitely responded. It was early and still pretty warm out. They were pretty no nonsense, the stage was filled with equipment from the other bands and since it was still light out I don't think they even used lighting. Their album will be out June 16 and I will definitely be purchasing it. Tom Morello of course lit it up. This video was from earlier in the tour.





Of course Trent Reznor put on a great show. If you have ever seen Nine Inch Nails live before you know the light show is spectacular unless of course you have a seizure disorder! The strobes were mesmerizing and I was thrilled I had continuous shooting on my camera or I would've never gotten the shots I did, I uploaded 460 pictures this morning and I have no idea how many I deleted at the show. I personally like this Trent Reznor better. He is now a hardcore buff musician taking control of the stage as opposed to the scrawny, goth guy crawling around the stage. (no offense to scrawny goth guys)

My brother turned to me at this point and said, "He is the only guy that I know that can make a tambourine look bad-ass". Yes Josh, yes he is.

Even though I would've loved to see him smash his keyboard like old times, he didn't. But he threw lots of stuff into the pit, including a couple tambourines. (how many did he have on stage anyway?) And no stage diving, I think he is a little too old for that one too. It amazes me that I first saw him 18 years ago. . . I am not that old.

"Rawk on"

During the Nine Inch Nails portion of the show, it started to get ugly in the weather department. I was a little freaked because our seats were under the amphitheatre shed, but just barely and I knew that if it began blowing we were going to get wet. My brother went to the bathroom and get a drink before it began to truly rain and when he came back he informed me that the tornado sirens were going off. Nice. The heavens opened and it absolutely poured but as luck would have it, it was blowing perfectly and we stayed dry.



This cloud definitely looked like it had some slow rotation to me. My brother thought it was just an optical illusion from the strobes. I am not sure if he was trying to make me feel better or not!


By the time Janes Addiction came out the weather had cleared up and it was quite cool. The crowd thinned a little (which was fine with me since we had some punk rock/hillbillies next to us who early on was smoking something that was not regular tobacco if you know what I mean! Srsly!) I had prepared myself for Perry Farrell prancing around the stage looking a little girly since I had seen a bunch of YouTube clips of previous tour shows. I was thrilled that he did not have on the pink alligator leather pants and the boa! I love me some Janes Addiction but I must say Perry still makes me giggle a little with his prancing around. During and early song, he was shaking maracas and I lost it in a giggling fit!

Great stage show, great backdrop (could've done without the bare boobies though), nice lighting.

Notice the maracas . . .

Or course, with a bare chested Dave Navarro, is there any other kind? I think the leather vest lasted 2 songs.

Prance much?

Navarro, facing his Marshall stack, rips it up on guitar.

Singing my favorite of all time, "Jane Says", the encore of course.

Thank you!

I saw Janes Addiction for the first time 19 years ago this month. I am officially old. I was pleased however with the diversity of the crowd. There were people older than me, kids as young as 8 or 9 with their parents, people dressed in leather, fishnets, combat boots, and flip flops. There were more tattoos than I could possibly count. I even saw a pair of my daycare parents that I would've NEVER expected to be there. Fun times. I leave you with my favorite fashion disaster couple. . .