thevoid99's Full Review: Nine Inch Nails - Beside You in Time
Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
When Trent Reznor and his industrial outfit Nine Inch Nails (NIN) returned in 2005 with their fourth full-length album With Teeth. The album was a surprise hit spawning three number-one modern rock singles for The Hand That Feeds, Only, and Every Day Is Exactly The Same. From 2005-2006, Reznor with a new live lineup that included Jerome Dillon from The Fragile-era, former Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White, keyboardist Alessandro Cortini, and guitarist Aaron North. The tour was a success but in the fall of 2005, Dillon fell ill and chose to leave the band where he was briefly replaced by acclaimed drummer Josh Freese of the Vandals, A Perfect Circle, and the failed Reznor-Maynard James Keenan side project Tapeworm for a couple of shows.
When Alex Carapetis played drums for a large portion of the band's fall U.S. tour, NIN continued to have success as a touring band while their live performances remained incendiary. When Freese returned for the late portion of the band's 2005 shows and the entirety of the band's U.S. tour in 2006 with Bauhaus and opening acts TV on the Radio and Peaches, it was clear that NIN was hear to stay. Now in 2007 with Reznor ready to unleash another album entitled Year Zero, he also unleashes a new DVD for Beside You in Time.
The concert DVD of Beside You in Time is a live document of NIN playing two shows on March 28, 2006 in Oklahoma City and March 30, 2006 in El Paso, Texas along with five clips from the band's summer tour with Bauhaus. Directed and edited by longtime NIN associate Rob Sheridan. Beside You in Time takes the same approach of the hand-held, digital camera work from 2002's And All That Could Have Been. The difference is a more superior approach to the visuals on hi-definition video and superior sound mixing with the DVD made in three different formats for standard, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray disc. Overall, Beside You in Time is an amazing, sprawling concert DVD from Trent Reznor and company.
The show begins with the song Love Is Not Enough as the band plays behind a sheer curtain with lights shining on the background. The lights begin to appear during the intense beats from Josh Freese as the band appears behind the curtain with their shadows in silhouette. The curtains go up for the frenetic You Know What You Are where strobe lights pulsate through the band's intense beats as Trent Reznor and company go wild. Guitarist Aaron North does some swinging on the guitar as if he's a samurai while the band remains dangerous. The classic Terrible Lie appears where the lights slow down only towards the end during the band's performance as North would kick and swing his mic towards his amp near the end of the song. The Lines Begin To Blur in its slow yet menacing snarl starts off with the side lights blasting white colors while the background features these Tetris-like screens that turn red with a drawn line slowly coming from one end of the stage to the other. The song's intensity goes full-red as if the band is bringing a show from hell.
March Of The Pigs arrive with its squealing, techno-like synthesizer opener before going into its full-on industrial assault with blinding lights and the screens showing TV-like static during the non-rocking part of the song as Reznor claps his hands with the audience joining in. There's a moment in the end of the song where North's craziness is revealed as he stage dives on the audience while playing. The classic ballad Something I Can Never Have changes the mood of the show for something more intimate. Audiences sport their lighters and cell phones for this ballad as the band plays the song in a darker, blue-purple setting with dashes of white lights with bassist Jeordie White and keyboardist Alessandro Cortini accompanying Reznor on the keyboards. Next comes Closer which is shortened a bit as the band plays with a red background with the screens showing watery-like images as Reznor sings on top of a platform behind Freese. The song adds a bit of the melody from the song The Only Time mixed in as its intensity and sexual-laden lyrics is one of the highlights.
Next is Burn from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack that opens with a scratching gadget that Cortini plays that's connected to his mic. Cortini does a lot of scratching as the band plays the intense, industrial rocker with pulsating blue, blinding lights playing up to the song's intensity. Gave Up appears in its aggro-industrial metal form with intense red-blue lights and white appearing on the little screens. Just as the song starts to wind down with North doing his samurai guitar swings, the curtains come down for the most important part of the show.
The next three songs feature film work by Andrea Giacobbe while on the standard DVD, it plays on real-time as does the Blu-Ray disc but on the HD-DVD, it doesn't. On the standard DVD and Blu-Ray disc during the performances, the DVD allows to present the songs in alternate angle by pressing the angle button to see the images on screen from a centered point-of-view. The Blu-Ray has other options that include a pop-up menu that's explained more on the DVD's website. Those alternate angles appears as extra content on the HD
First is Eraser with its harrowing imagery of nature with the lights revealing each band member playing their instrument as the song intensifies behind the curtains. The images begin with cells and organism to a horde of animals and nature yet just as the song starts to darken, the imagery of war and destruction come in. There, could be an interpretation of where Reznor stands on nature and whose view he agrees with. Terrence Malick or Werner Herzog? Yet, the imagery of war and Reznor's political stance is known by fans in recent months. Next is the ballad Right Where It Belongs that reveals more harrowing images of war, nature, and surreal moments of suburbia and the world itself. There, Reznor accompanied by White on acoustic guitar, sings the harrowing ballad that features an image of President George W. Bush that gets a big response. The images also include things that are obscene itself that becomes one of the powerful moments in the show. The final song behind the curtains is Beside You In Time as the ghostly images obscures the band behind the curtain as the song starts to slowly intensifies and briefly stops. Then, once the music comes in, rainfall appears as Reznor strikes at the curtain as it shatters where it rises up.
Next is With Teeth or as fans call it, Awitha Teetha, where the band really shows their prowess through White's heavy bass lines, Freese' gymnastic drumming, and North's snarling guitars. During the chorus, the lights go blue while the rest of the performance, NIN goes green. Yes, Trent's a fan of An Inconvenient Truth, and does a little piano solo in the middle of the song. Then comes the industrial-metal assault of Wish with its frenetic beats and pulsating lights, metal guitars, and all breaking loose as it's the song to pump things up. The industrial funk of Only arrives as the band is obscured this time by static imagery of squares through the little and big screen behind them. Yet, it's another highlight as NIN gives the audience something to dance to as they risk their cred by actually doing a bit of disco. Next is The Big Come Down from The Fragile where the band continues to maintain their intensity along with art-rock musicianship as it's one of the obscure tracks from the highly-underrated double album. When the song gets intense, the band definitely gets a little crazy with White kicking his mic stand.
Things definitely quiet down for the classic ballad later made famous by the late Johnny Cash called Hurt. Playing behind a light, Reznor sings the ballad playing a piano-keyboard with fans joining along during the chorus. There’s a shot from the stage that shows the audience lighting up their lighters and cell phones for this wonderful, intimate moment. Next is the anti-Bush anthem The Hand That Feeds with its intense, industrial-rock assault and very political lyrics that is a huge highlight as the band plays under blue lights. The closing track is the classic Head Like A Hole in which, the band goes nuts with pulsating white lights and Aaron North jumping and running around during the song as everyone including the audience goes nuts.
The last concert DVD for And All That Could Have Been was released and made just as the DVD format was still a new thing. The result was a 2-disc show that featured the band playing with digital cameras capturing the show. For Beside You in Time, Reznor and director/editor Rob Sheridan took advantage of the hi-definition cameras that not only gave the concerts a far superior look visually and technically. It nearly gives the idea of what it's like being there. Cinematographer David Rudd presents a polished yet wonderful look to the concert footage that is superior to the grimy, hand-held work of the last DVD. While there's more steadicam, crane shots, and something that's seen in most professional concerts, there's still some hand-held and cameras set up on stage and where the audience is to maintain that feeling of being in the show.
Sheridan's direction and editing is superb in the idea of bringing a show while the editing isn't the MTV-cutting style that's been known these days. The editing still plays to its fast-paced style given to the band's energy but at least Sheridan allows the viewer to see things for more than just-5-10 seconds on a shot. Particularly for a show that's about 90 minutes.
The Region-free standard DVD is presented in 1:78:1 aspect ratio for 16x9 TV in widescreen for the main concert. It also includes subtitles and closed-caption so people can sing along to the lyrics. The sound work is an improvement of the previous DVD since technology has improved where the DVD is presented in three different sound formats. Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, and DTS 5.1 Surround Sound. Though it will never replicate the feeling of being at the concert, the sound is still amazing to play up to the band's energy while hearing the audience at times during the performances. The DVD also contains a booklet where on the HD and Blu-Ray disc, there's a strange message that relates to the upcoming album Year Zero. Overall, Reznor and Sheridan created a fantastic DVD for the fans thanks to the improved technology they were able to work with.
The extra features includes not just an image gallery from the band's With Teeth tour that is filled with amazing images but also a body of work discography that reveals song and video clips from the band's singles, albums, and videos up till this DVD. Five performances from the band's summer leg of their 2006 North American tour appear in the same, 16x9 widescreen format.
First is Somewhat Damaged that was the actual opener for the summer leg of the tour where the house lights were on as Reznor sang behind five metal shutters. Then as the song gets intense, the lights go down as the shutters remain down as the band plays on. Closer also appears while its set-up remains the same, the only difference is that the middle metal shutter is in front of Reznor to convey the sense of heartbeat to the song's unique rhythm.
The instrumental Help Me I'm In Hell features all five shutters in front of the band that produces images of red blood cells flying around in front of the audience. The non-LP track Non-Entity, that was a song Reznor made for a Hurricane Katrina benefit appears in a full-band form that sounds very different than Reznor's original recording. With the shutters showing ghostly, airy images during the chorus. Only continues its TV-static set-up with the shutters in front of the band. Overall, the additional concert footage is worth noting to see the band doing something different.
Two music videos appear on the DVD. First is The Hand That Feeds directed by Rob Sheridan that features the band performing the song in their rehearsal studio with scratchy images on them. More is explained on my review for The Hand That Feeds single. The second video is for the song Only directed by David Fincher. Probably their best video since Closer, the video shows Reznor in a CGI image against an office object of nails as he sings the song while being surrounded by other office things like a computer and such. It's one of the band's best videos while also adds to the talents of David Fincher. It should be noted that both videos are shown on full-screen.
The rehearsal clips are also on full-screen for the songs The Collector, Love Is Not Enough, and Every Day Is Exactly The Same featuring Jerome Dillon on drums. Shot in the same rehearsal studio that The Hand That Feeds was shot, it shows the band playing these songs as they're rehearsing them. For The Collector, it shows Aaron North going nuts as usual while all the clips acknowledge the talents of Jerome Dillon despite his recent bitterness towards Reznor after his departure. The rehearsal clips are also shot and directed by Rob Sheridan.
While the extra stuff fulfills all the needs that NIN fans want, it does leave wanting for more like the unfinished video for Every Day Is Exactly The Same that got cancelled during post-production. The video footage of Reznor with Peter Murphy during their radio sessions that included TV on the Radio in the Washington D.C. sessions. There were also more concert footage from the summer that didn't make it due to sound problems. Yet, Beside You in Time does fulfill everything that NIN fans want though the best way to experience them live is being there.
Now that the With Teeth era comes to an end, the DVD proves that NIN is here to stay amidst new trends and new bands that have come and gone. So far, Trent Reznor and company have survived the likes of Creed, Limp Bizkit, and the Backstreet Boys. It's likely they can still survive and outplay the likes of today's bands like Fallout Boy and Hinder. In the end, Beside You in Time is a brilliant, intense concert DVD for fans of NIN as they now await the revolution that is known as Year Zero.
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)
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