It was Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction who was screaming, "nothing's shocking!" but he didn't see what was going on Wednesday night in Section P, Row N at the Post-Gazette Pavilion.
There stood an elderly, white-haired man wearing a Nine Inch Nails cap and a wide grin, rocking back and forth, clapping along -- too slow for the beat -- for the entire 90 minutes of that band's bruising set as if he were watching the Beach Boys or maybe the church choir.
He's more than a half-century too old to like NIN, but I suppose it's different when it's Trent Reznor's grandfather. Ninety-eight-year-old Bill Clark accompanied Reznor's mom and several other relatives to the show, all looking far too kind and wholesome to have raised the most tortured artist of his generation.
It was part concert, part Freudian curiosity to watch the Mercer native scream lines like "Don't you tell me how I feel/You don't know just how I feel!" in the general vicinity of his mom.
The NIN/JA tour was a double reunion, marking the return of the original Jane's Addiction, while pairing the two principals of the maiden Lollapalooza, which never darkened our door. If you closed your eyes, it was very much like Lolla 91. If you opened them, you saw a crowd of bulkier 35- to 40-year-olds with cameras, cell phones and beers who weren't going to mosh and fight like they did when they were 17, which alters the energy substantially. No one really was getting much wilder than Mr. Clark.
Despite being forever linked by the culture, NIN and Jane's Addiction are worlds apart spiritually and aesthetically. NIN played first, sacrificing some of its vampiric aura to the daylight still surrounding the venue. Reznor, in black leather pants and bulging muscles, was grinding out his gothic industrial metal on a colorless, foggy stage filled with flashing strobes so intense he dared you to look. He ventured from guitar to keyboard to synthesizer, creating the favored headphone music of a serial killer -- a vast sonic range from pretty, brooding atmosphere to stabbing, bludgeoning hardcore.
The set was spiked with scorchers like "March of the Pigs," "Head Like a Hole" and "I'm Afraid of Americans," where Reznor and Robin Finck's guitars sounded like jackhammers, and balanced with painful slow-burns like "The Becoming" and "The Fragile," which called for acoustic guitar or piano.
Sixteen songs in, Reznor announced, "This is the last we're going to be around -- we appreciate your support over the years," and ultimately left us a world full of "Hurt."
"Ain't no wrong/ain't no right/Only pleasure and pain," Perry Farrell shrieked on the third song, and if NIN was the pain, Jane's was the pleasure. The glammy L.A. band hit the stage, opening up a world of color, sexuality and celebration.
The phenomenal foursome wields a hammer like a cross between Zeppelin and the Stooges, with the sinewy Farrell a constant blur of motion. Jane's went right to the meat with its staggering epic "Three Days," which found Stephen Perkins beating the drums like Bonham and tattooed guitar hero Dave Navarro firing bolts like the Mighty Thor.
Where NIN boiled inside, Jane's spread its wings with towering anthems like "Ocean Size" and "The Mountain Song," while also jabbing with the short spastic stuff like "Been Caught Stealing" and "Stop!" With the formidable Eric Avery back on bass, Jane's blew the 2003 version of itself out of the water.
After "Jane Says," it was impossible to leave Burgettstown without talking about which band you liked better. Me, I'm a JA guy. Bill Clark, he bolted early -- he's totally Nine Inch Nails.
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