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Desperate for NIN tickets

Staff Column

By Joshua Michael Torres for The Oklahoma Daily Online on March 5, 2005

Of all the tragedies I have suffered over the years, the biggest blow came last Friday afternoon at 5:05 p.m.: every Nine Inch Nails tour date in the U.S. sold out within minutes of their first availability. Let me put it this way: I would miss the birth of my first born child to see Nine Inch Nails.  If anybody is in desperate need of a kidney and has two extra tickets for the Houston show give me a call.

Already tickets have hit Ebay for hundreds of dollars, and as a die hard NIN fan that doesn't surprise me in the least.

The 1999 release "The Fragile" ended the five year wait for NIN mastermind Trent Reznor to release a new full length LP and it's touring time again. It immediately shot to number one on the Billboard charts but the following weeks sharply fell into the depths of "not cool enough to bump from my car to impress the chicks at school." 

Reznor shocked us all by putting something in "The Fragile" that was completely unexpected even from him: Hope. People were complaining that "The Fragile" was too mainstream, that it was too goth or not goth enough. What happened? Did Reznor just forget to play with self-destruction and suicide? I mean, come on, Johnny Cash could have used one more song to mutilate and ruin on his last album. Obviously Trent didn't drop the F-bomb enough.

I, however, as a well-rounded and open-minded music lover, gave "The Fragile" a chance and fell in love with it as a work of art and beauty. Experiencing Reznor's music, and all music in general, the listener must give themselves to amnesia and forget everything they ever knew about anything and just shut up and listen. Already two of the tracks from the forthcoming NIN album "With Teeth" have hit the Internet and the entire NIN community already cannot make up its mind about it. People are already saying that it's too poppy or not deep enough.

As a devoted Nine Inch Nails fan I implore you to give "With Teeth" a chance  rather than dismiss it as mid-'90s industrial fodder. Don't be surprised May 3 if you go to a record store, and most of the people inside are wearing spiked leather chokers, long black trench coats and look like they haven't seen the sun in a few years. Don't be scared, we are your friends.

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