When The Whip Comes Down: NIN Live at Woodstock '94 Aug 13 '09 (Updated Sep 26 '09)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 Mai by Eri Sugai From $4 The Bottom Line When the Whip Comes Down is an Excellent Bootleg Showcasing NIN's Infamous Woodstock '94 Performance. August 13, 1994 would be a night that would change the face of not just industrial and alternative music but mainstream music altogether. It was at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the legendary Woodstock Festival held from August 12-15 in 1969 at Bethel, New York. Twenty-five years later at Saugerties, New York, veterans from that legendary festival such as Joe Cocker, Santana, Country Joe McDonald, the Band, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, John Sebastian, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash appeared with acts of the time like Aerosmith, Metallica, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, Paul Rodgers, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, and Green Day. Yet, one band managed to make an impact on a rainy night on the 13th as their own fortunes would change along with the genre they helped popularize. That band was Nine Inch Nails. Drenched in mud from head to toe with a fierce, assaultive music that was the opposite of peace and love in favor of nihilism. Led by the band's mastermind Trent Reznor, NIN were in the midst of a tour to support their second full-length release The Downward Spiral as its second single Closer was becoming a big hit in the modern and mainstream rock charts thanks to a groundbreaking music video. Along with guitarist Robin Finck, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner, keyboardist James Wooley, and drummer/programmer Chris Vrenna, NIN at that night would change everything as they would become a band that captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of people on that rainy night with millions more watching at home on pay-per-view television. While Reznor and the band felt their performance at Woodstock ‘94 was not one of their favorites, it was considered to be the performance that broke through the mainstream as sales for The Downward Spiral soared to the charts eventually selling five million copies worldwide. After that night, NIN was in demand with Trent Reznor on the cover of many magazines and record companies trying to find bands that sounded like NIN as for that brief moment. They were the most popular band of that time whether Trent Reznor liked it or not. After that infamous performance, hordes of bootlegs over that performance were released and such yet the bootleg that was the most famous of all was entitled When the Whip Comes Down. The bootleg is a 16-track album featuring the band's infamous concert at Woodstock ‘94 in its entirety for the most part. While there's some edits and such to compress everything onto a CD at the time, it is considered one of the finest bootlegs from NIN though a release not endorsed by Reznor or associates of NIN at the time when it came out. Despite a few of its flaws, it is one of the essential bootlegs from NIN.   The crowd cheers as the burgeoning, droning guitar noise of the instrumental intro Pinion appears with NIN taking to the stage as they get ready to rock Saugerties. The first song Terrible Lie appears with its tingling sounds of synthesizers and distorted tap beats. With its mid-tempo presentation of raging guitars, hard-hitting drums, and angst-ridden lyrics, NIN gets ready to assault their audience with Reznor screaming all that rage as it's definitely not 1969. Then comes the upbeat yet hypnotic industrial-dance of Sin with its bleeping synthesizers, driving guitars, vibrant beats, and Reznor's sexual-laden lyrics with hollow synthesizer riffs as it's a song that just kicks the show into high gear with microphones falling down and stands being thrown all around the stage. The high-octane, frenetic March Of The Pigs with its hammering, trash-can beats, droning synthesizers, driving guitars, and Reznor's scratchy vocals with incendiary lyrics get the show going with fans screaming after Reznor quiets the song and asks "doesn't it make you feel better?" The haunting ballad Something I Can Never Have with its somber piano melody, soothing synthesizer accompaniment, and melancholic lyrics with Reznor singing in a calm vocal style. With drums accompanying the song's chorus, it's one of the most powerful moments of the bootleg despite some audio issues. Then comes Closer which brings the biggest response from the audience with its heartbeat rhythm, bleeping synthesizers, and Reznor's sexual-laden lyrics. The intensity of the performance with its layered synthesizers and heavy beats with growling guitars makes this track one of the standout cuts of the record. An edited version of Reptile (due to CD limitations) appears in its heavy, mid-tempo presentation of growling guitars, ominous synthesizer swoons, heavy beats, and Reznor's dark lyrics as he screams profanity in the song's coda. The fast, industrial-metal assault of Wish arrives with its raging guitars, hard-hitting drums, ominous synthesizer background, and even angrier lyrics as its one of the loudest, most aggressive songs of the night. The Pigface song Suck with its melodic bass line, mid-tempo presentation and nihilistic lyrics starts out as a laid-back song until thrashing guitars and hard-hitting drums appear for a full-on metal assault. Burn from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, is a song with trash-can beats, droning synthesizers and even darker lyrics as it is song that features a wailing guitar solo that intensify the song right to its core. The Only Time is a mid-tempo song with melodic bass lines, bleeping synthesizer riffs, and Reznor's humorous yet dark lyrics as it's a playful song with thrashing guitars and hard-hitting drums. The melodic yet mid-tempo track Down In It that features sounds of Reznor kicking and beating up a synthesizer as the song has Reznor on growling vocals singing some angst-ridden lyrics as he goes nuts during the performance. The Joy Division song Dead Souls from the soundtrack to The Crow is performed in a slower yet thundering tempo led by throbbing bass lines, rumbling beats, and thrashing guitars with Reznor singing Ian Curtis' tormented lyrics. The instrumental track Help Me I Am In Hell features some driving guitars and hard-hitting beats to windy synthesizer sounds as it's really the build up for the next track. The industrial-metal assault of Happiness In Slavery with its screaming vocals, thundering drums, raging guitars, and wall-to-wall synthesizer sounds as everything goes into full-on chaos with its nihilistic lyrics. The final song of the performance is the anthemic Head Like A Hole with its raging guitars, hard-hitting drums, and droning synthesizers as it's a song that is pure angst as it serves as great way to close the show. While the record does have some audio issues with the mixing where some lyrics aren't heard along with some instruments. It is what is expected in bootlegs while the song Reptile loses its first third in the editing due to CD compression timing. One track that seems to be well-mixed is Happiness In Slavery largely because it's filled with some overdubs as it was taken from a Woodstock ‘94 2-CD compilation album. Despite some of the audio issues and constraints, it is pretty much one of the best bootlegs from the unofficial NIN camp as it's a must-have for hardcore fans of the band. The video performance itself, though hard to find can be found quite easily but in separate clips at YouTube to show the chaos of that performance. In the end, When the Whip Comes Down is an excellent bootleg chronicling NIN's most infamous performance that would break them into the mainstream media. NIN Reviews: Pretty Hate Machine/Broken Era (1989-1992): halo 1 - halo 2 - halo 3 - halo 4 - halo 5 - halo 6 The Downward Spiral Era (1994-1997): halo 7 - halo 8 - halo 8 DE - halo 9 - halo 10 - halo 11 - halo 12 The Fragile Era (1999-2002): halo 13 - halo 14 - halo 15.1 - halo 15.2 - halo 15.3 - halo 16 - halo 17 DE - halo 17 DVD With Teeth/Year Zero Era: halo 18 - halo 19 - halo 20 - halo 21 - halo 22 - halo 23 - halo 24 - halo 25 Ghosts I-IV/The Slip Era (2008): halo 26 - halo 27 Soundtracks/Miscellaneous: The Crow - Natural Born Killers - Lost Highway - Nine Inch Nails: Self-Destruct - Tomb Raider - The Limitless Potential - Strobe Light - Metal Machine Music: Nine Inch Nails & the Industrial Uprise Promos: (seed 1) - (seed 2) - (seed 3) - (seed 4) - (seed 5) - (seed 6) Live Shows: (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) - (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinnett Arena) - NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper Social Club-5/10/09 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater Bootlegs: Purest Feeling - Live Hate w/ David Bowie - Quake OST - The CRC Sessions - Where Darkness Doubles, Where Light Pours In - Bridge School Concerts

Write the first comment on this review!

Write an essay on this topic.