A tale of woe (NIN and Sydney)

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Last week I flew over to Sydney, mainly for the purpose of seeing a NIN concert, along with just seeing the city itself. I've previously never been to a larger city than Auckland, and the experience kindly elucidated what a tiny shithole Auckland's city actually is. Still, I can't say big cities are my thing.
The first couple of days of the trip were all right. Investigated the zoos, the parks, and the beaches. I was quite impressed by the amount of wildlife over there, even around city areas. NZ seems totally dead in comparison. The wild pelicans, ravens, ibises and lizards made me particularly happy. But mostly I was looking forward to the NIN concert, as I am tragically obsessed.
On the day of the concert we got there pretty early, and waited around outside the venue. People with spiral tickets were allowed in earlier than everyone else, so there wasn't too long to go. You could hear what sounded to be the band rehearsing before the concert, inside.
And then I overheard someone in the crowd, mentioning that the concert was cancelled. I didn't take this seriously, with it being so soon until the concert was due to begin, and hearing the band right inside. But as I wandered around the area, I began noticing this was the topic of conversation for near everyone in the vicinity. So I went to ask the person at the box office about this, and he validated that the concert had indeed been cancelled, this feking soon before it was supposed to start D: D: FAIL.

So, overall, I'd say this trip was a very big waste of money. If I'd been able to get further outside of Sydney CBD to do some exploring it would have been cool. But I guess I'm glad to at least have seen Sydney. I want to travel more, preferably some place further away from NZ next time.

On a semi-related note, I'm really liking NIN's Year Zero. Wasn't so sure about it at first, but it's got some interesting sounds to it that I'm really keen on. The music style has taken quite a different direction, and in some parts the hiphop influence is a bit too apparent for my liking. The lyrics generally make me cringe, along with the vocal style in some of the songs, which again seem to show a hiphop influence. It's an album that I find best as a whole, conveying a kind of story, which unsurprisingly happens to be a rather depressing one. But, it's not as "personal" as previous albums, which I'm ambivalent about. While I've gone off blatant "WHAAA I HATE MY LIFE" themes in music, overused political themes (which seems to be what YZ is centered around) aren't my thing either. But, ignoring this, the sound of the music is great. I think this album is far superior to With Teeth, so I'm happy :D
I'm curious about others' opinions of this album, too. Anyone?


Yeah. Felt like I should actually update this thing, and this has been the most significant thing that's happened lately.

Also, no digital art for a while. My larger screen died on me.
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Rhavethstine's avatar
Heh, I posted about Year Zero in my journal awhile back and nobody commented. It's nice to see some other people on DA who are actually interested.

I thought the same thing the first time I listened to Year Zero on the NIN website. I thought it sounded chaotic and strained and maybe even a little forced at first. But all it took was a few repetitions before I started to "get" it. It began to sink in and before long I actually liked most of the material on the album.

As I listened, the politicized lyrics seemed particularly out of place for a Nine Inch Nails album. That was before I learned that this was a concept album. It is just as much a vision of the future as it is a political commentary. Now that I think of it, I guess it is a rather US-centric vision. For me it came as somewhat of a relief to know he's not a completely introverted individual. He does recognize that the outside world - with all its increasingly complex problems - does exist. XD

That's a bummer that you're going to have to get a refund on the concert tickets. NIN is one of the few bands that I'd be willing to go see in concert, so I can imagine the disappointment you must have had in traveling all that way only to find they gave up on you. I can't believe they don't swing by NZ. Seems like it would be a nice vacation spot for the band, if nothing else. :)