Just a glimpse, just a little reminder. Of a time and place we used to live in. This DVD attempts to document the experience of Nine Inch Nails live, as we were in the summer of 2000. We filmed and recorded most of the dates of the North American Fragility 2.0 tour with home video cameras. Then assembled, mixed, and edited this ourselves with home computers. In my eyes, Fragility 2.0 was a summation of what we had accomplished up to that time, so this DVD serves as a reminder of achievement as well as a departure point. This is almost what it felt like being there.

-Trent Reznor from his liner notes of the NIN DVD for And All That Could Have Been

One of the greatest experiences many music fans ever had with their idols was attending their concerts. The concert not only allows the performer to connect with his or her own audience but the chance for the fan to see his/her favorite star in person. While the concerts sometimes carry a moment that can never be captured by the imagination, they have however can be televised for those who never got the chance to see them. Unfortunately, watching a concert on the television doesn’t really give the viewer a chance to connect with their favorite performer. Televised concerts from networks like CBS, NBC, and the cable channel HBO gives the viewer not just the chance to see their favorite artist perform their favorite songs but also the bad feeling of professionalism and slickness that just ruins the human connection between the performer and audience.

The televised concerts are usually produced by networks and cables channel just to get ratings and that features wide camera angles of an arena along with seeing the show all the way in the back of the arena and a shot of the audience watching their performers as the cameras hang over their heads while they’re watching their favorite performer. In the past few years, performances from big acts like Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, ‘Nsync, and Britney Spears that are all concerts with big stage productions with a lot of pyrotechnics and fireworks along with dance choreography and a huge screen that was more like a Broadway show filled with glitz and glamour rather than a concert where people can connect with their favorite star. In early 2002, alternative rock icons Nine Inch Nails released a concert DVD titled And All That Could Have Been, along with an accompanying live album of the same name, that not only changed the rules of how to film a concert but also what it’s like to be at a NIN show from a fan’s point of view along with the band’s point of view.

Throughout the band’s thirteen year career, NIN and its leader Trent Reznor has always made their live performances not just memorable for the audience but also make it an experience that was lacking throughout the 1980s when concerts had a glossiness and professionalism that took away the connection between the performer and audience. When NIN started touring in 1989 promoting their debut album Pretty Hate Machine, they started out in clubs where Reznor brought theatrics to the audience without the props or other gadgets. Instead, he made his shows as if it was a war between the band and the audience and that helped NIN gain its fan base from the start until the summer of 1991 when they landed the opening band slot of the inaugural Lollapalooza tour headlined by Jane’s Addiction. The Lollapalooza tour not only helped the album sales for Pretty Hate Machine which sold a million copies, two years after its release, but also helped Nine Inch Nails’ profile as a great live band.

When the band toured for their second album The Downward Spiral in 1994, they started to play arenas where their shows were not only compared to the theatricality of artists and bands like Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Kiss, and Pink Floyd along with the chaos of The Who and Iggy Pop where the band would destroy their instruments at the end of show and sometimes during performances where Trent Reznor would throw his microphone stand at his drummer or keyboard player or fondle his guitar player sexually while he’s playing. When the band performed Woodstock 1994 to an audience of 250,000 people, they performed covered in mud and brought chaos to a festival that was known more about peace and love rather than being about self-destruction and alienation. The Woodstock performance put NIN into the mainstream, as their shows got bigger where they played behind a silhouette movie screen and by late 1995, the band opened for David Bowie where both of their performances segue into each other as NIN and Bowie both performed their songs including a chilling duet of the NIN song Hurt by Reznor and Bowie.

When NIN returned to the road in 2000 to support their 1999 critically acclaimed double album The Fragile in the U.S., NIN still showed their power as a great live band in the world of the slick, glossy big stage production shows of acts like Britney Spears and ‘Nsync. Although The Fragile wasn’t a huge blockbuster on the charts, the shows NIN did in the U.S. tour were huge sellers and their fans went absolutely nuts for the band they loved. During the first half of the tour, Trent Reznor decided to hire a professional film crew to film a few of the NIN shows for a DVD project and when Reznor saw the finished result, he wasn’t happy. Reznor described the professional concert film as if he was watching the usual, slick concerts that are shown on HBO or NBC and those old concert music videos Bon Jovi made in the late 1980s. Unhappy with professional concert film, Reznor called a meeting with his band mates and members of his entourage about the scrapped concert film and the new plan was to buy some digital cameras, film the next series of concert dates and film them from the view of the stage, from the front row, the mosh pit, or any angle to give the viewer what it’s like being at a NIN concert.

When NIN saw the footage after they finished their tour in the summer of 2000, the results were a lot more pleasing than the original film Reznor scrapped earlier. There, they saw footage from a fan’s point of view along with extreme close-up shots of the band performing their instruments as their watching the fans reaction to the songs. There, Reznor and Rob Sheridan, the band’s official webmaster, worked on the film project using Apple computers and Apple software to not only to recreate the experience of being at a NIN concert with a full concert-like sound but also see what it’s like to be at a NIN concert from certain areas of the show that isn’t sitting in the nosebleed seats. The DVD project took over a year to complete since Reznor, Sheridan, and several of Reznor’s NIN cohorts including Danny Lohner, Jerome Dillon, Charlie Clouser, and engineers Keith Hillebrandt, Jon Lemon, and Dave “Rave" Ogilvie not only worked on editing the film footage of the DVD but also find the right mixing that is loud enough as if someone is attending a concert.

While working on the audio configurations and visual editing for the DVD, the results of a high-resolution sound for the NIN DVD was so high that Reznor decided that DVD project should become a two-DVD disc set and should be released in separate formats. When NIN finished the DVD project in late 2001, NIN sent a press release concerning about the DVD not only on the fact that it would be released as a 2-disc set but also in separate formats, DTS Surround Sound 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. For those who don’t really know the difference between Dolby Digital and DTS, it’s quite simple. Dolby Digital sound is centered towards two speakers, left and right, while DTS is centered towards multiple speakers. When you put the NIN DVD disc in your DVD player, there will be screening options before the DVD menu on whether you want your sound to be DTS or Dolby Digital. Either DVD formats contains those options on the audio configuration. For more information on the audio configuration and why NIN released the And All That Could Have Been DVD as a two-disc set, go to the band’s official website at www.nin.com/ in the Current section where they will give you any information concerning the NIN DVD.

The Nine Inch Nails DVD is pretty much a chronicle of the band’s 2000 U.S. tour where the band performs nineteen songs from their 13-year career. Of course when you see the DVD, you’re wondering, “Wait a minute, a minute ago. Trent was wearing shorts and now he has pants and makeup”. Directed and edited by Rob Sheridan, the DVD gives an in-depth look at a NIN concert from the eyes of fans from the mosh pits or from the side of the stage and also a view of the show from the band member’s point of view as they’re playing. Although the DVD is just a concert performance, it’s not a performance of one show. It’s actually the latter part of the U.S. tour NIN did in the spring/summer of 2000. Sheridan isn’t trying to trick the viewer; he’s just trying to give fans a perspective of a NIN show from different cities (though the cities aren’t revealed).

With a high-resolution sound, (Note: I recommend to turn down the TV while watching the DVD unless you want to put a big hole in your house.) Nine Inch Nails gives for those who hadn’t a seen a NIN show what it’s like to at a NIN concert. No fireworks, no pyrotechnics, no production numbers, no choreography, and none of that god awful Broadway-like type of stuff. Just sheer brutality and great music NIN brings to the table.

Nine Inch Nails:

Trent Reznor-Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards
Danny Lohner-Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
Jerome Dillon-Drums
Charlie Clouser-Keyboards, Theremins, Vocals
Robin Finck-Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals

The DVD performance starts off with an intro that featured background music from the song The New Flesh that is mixed in with the instrumental opener Pinion where NIN is behind a curtain as fans cheered for the band to get ready. When the closing metal-guitar riffs of Pinion ends comes the first song of the show, Terrible Lie as the curtain comes down and a single light appears as Trent Reznor wearing torn-up gray clothing with his face covered in cornstarch while wearing black makeup sings the opening lyrics of “Hey God, why are you doing this to me? Am I not living up to what I’m supposed to be? Why am I seething with this animosity? Hey God, I think you owe me a great big apology” that then leads the chorus of “Terrible lie” as the band starts to appear in the same gray clothing and black/white makeup along with pulsating lights and fast light strobes playing behind the band including shots from the stage where the band sees the audience and from several views where the audience is seeing including a far shot from the lower back corner of the arena. During the performance of Terrible Lie, Reznor squirts water from big water bottles to the fans while the band is performing.

Next is Sin where the light background is in blue as Charlie Clouser performs an opening theremin solo as Danny Lohner accompanies him with a pulsating keyboard track that is then followed by a blistering assault from Robin Finck’s guitar and Jerome Dillon’s hard-hitting drum tracks as Reznor then starts to sing with a purple and blue lighting background comes in as he sings the song. During the performance of the song, fans threw things at the band including a t-shirt and when Finck did his guitar solo, Reznor tries to push him out of the stage until Finck’s solo ends and he ends up stage-diving towards the audience. March Of The Pigs comes in as a single light appears on Jerome Dillon who is playing the opening drum solo as the rest of the band follows including Reznor as they’re played behind an orange background during the hard-rocking music structure that includes shots of fans moshing to the hard-rocking song including a shot of Robin Finck pushing Charlie Clouser out of his keyboard platform while he was straddling the keyboard stand along with Finck lying down as he plays guitar while wearing a Mohawk.

Piggy is set in a black and blue background as Reznor sings the song accompanied by Danny Lohner on the bass. Reznor is sitting down on the stage as he sings the song with the fans even during the chorus when a small red light appears as he’s singing “Nothing can stop me now/Cause I don’t care anymore”. During the song as Robin Finck plays an accompanying keyboard solo, Reznor hops around during the song and by the near-end of the song, Reznor gets off the stage and into the security area as he is singing the song with the fans and then comes back to the stage to finish the song by playing a piano track on Finck’s keyboard. Then comes the instrumental track The Frail as Reznor plays the piano-based instrumental as fans light up their lighters during the track and there’s a nice shot from ground floor of the arena of fans lighting up their lighters. As The Frail then leads up to the next song The Wretched, pulsating blue and purple light strobes come in from above the three screening panels are displayed that is reminiscent of the huge white lighting display on David Bowie’s 1976 Station to Station tour. The lighting display from the three screening panels above the stage show lights that look like lightning as the band plays the art-rock song especially during the chorus when green and orange lights come in that includes a nice shot from the front row.

Gave Up, the fast-tempo industrial rock song, marks the song’s intensity as the fans themselves get pumped up as NIN is performed in a blue, red, and purple background with the three screening panels above them also bring out pulsating lights. Some of the shots that are included during the performances are a nice close-up shot of Danny Lohner playing his guitar and shots of the fans including one fan sitting on someone’s shoulder singing along and a nice shot from the upper level of an arena showing a view of the fans moshing and jumping up and down. As the song starts to finish up, the three screening panels above the band starts to move and ends up displayed in front of the audience and behind the band as it beams a nice orange light and by the end of the song turns to a light blue color.

The next song La Mer is the first of three songs that features film collages by David Carson and director Bill Viola. The performance starts off with Reznor playing piano as rain drops appear dropping on water slowly on different color settings from light blue to red and orange to not only give the show a sense of calm and artistry that lacks a lot in today’s pop concerts but also how to give fans a sense of beauty that the music reflects on a visual and personal level. As the performance show shots of Robin Finck playing a ukulele that then leads into a jazz-like interlude as the screening panels show rain drops rain heavily on the water than then leads into a soothing wave scene of water flowing slowly as the sun reflects on the water and by the near-end of the scene, there’s a woman slowly swimming underwater that came straight out of an album sleeve by This Mortal Coil (although the 4AD studio project by John Fryer and Ivo-Watts Russell never did a live performance in their entire career) that gives the performance a lovely climax.

The Great Below is a big highlight of the NIN performance as the screening panels show mountainous oceans from Japan as waves started to crash in slowly as Reznor sings the atmospheric-rock track that then leads into a beautiful scene backdrop of a man walking in a field of poppy flowers in Northern California that is reminiscent of some of the images made by Pink Floyd (circa-1967, Syd Barrett era) that gives the show a psychedelic feel. As the song starts to pick up the tempo, the screen shows a nice water scene from Big Sur, California that then leads into a great shot of a man diving into the water backwards that marks the highlight of the entire show. For the instrumental track The Mark Has Been Made the track starts off as a melodic-rock track with water waves flowing down the sea slowly that then stops into an orange beam where Robin Finck brings in a twang guitar solo as he’s the only person shown in the light until the track becomes a hard rocking instrumental as the screening panels show a man walking around in fire and by the time song comes to its climax, the film shows a mix of crashing water waves and fire as Reznor sings a vocal part with a shot of the fans from the stage as Finck tries to give the camera a view of his butt while he’s wearing tight pants.

The next song Wish marks the performance’s peak of intensity as its driven by its hard-rocking industrial structure along with pulsating strobe lights as the band plays and during the performance, there’s a shot of Robin Finck jumping onto Charlie Clouser’s keyboard platform as someone threw a roll of toilet paper. The performance also show shots from the ground floor including one fan who plays air-drums during the song as NIN gets louder and faster during the performance that is spurred by Jerome Dillon’s frenetic drum performance. The instrumental for Complication starts off with Trent Reznor playing a psychedelic-like guitar track until Finck brings in a fuzzy-metal guitar solo as the rest of the band plays the instrumental track with Charlie Clouser making vocal noises with voice box (the Framptone voice box made famous by 70s rock legend Peter Frampton) as the three screen panels show fast colorful images to make the performance a psychedelic rock show from hell as Reznor wails his vocals including screaming high notes. Complication marks the end of the first disc of the performance part of the DVD.

The second DVD disc begins with performance of the song Suck. The funky-bass driven song led by Danny Lohner’s bass accompanies Reznor’s bleak vocals as he’s screened behind orange and green light beams and when he sings the chorus of “How does it feel? Suck, suck suck” as the song becomes a hard-rocking track with pulsating light strobes take the frenetic energy of the song. Closer begins with the middle-screening panel with images of red blood cells co-created by Rob Sheridan as Jerome Dillon plays the opening heart beat rhythms on his drums as Reznor then starts to sing the sexual-driven lyrics as he’s accompanied by Clouser and Lohner on the synthesizers. Reznor joins the fan in singing the famous line of “I want to f*ck you like an animal” while Finck accompanies him on the synthesizer. As Finck plays guitar in the near-end of the song, Reznor starts to grope him sexually as he plays and ends up destroying his keyboard at the end of the song and playfully squirt water on Lohner’s keyboard as he finishes the song. Head Like A Hole comes in as the lights brighten up and takes the energy of the concert back to full-tilt especially during the chorus where the lights pulsate rapidly as the song becomes a fast, hard rocking track and by the end of the songs, the band members destroy their instruments and the main part of the show ends.

After a brief encore break, the band returns for the instrumental Just Like You Imagined. The instrumental track begins with a piano solo from Charlie Clouser as he is then accompanied by the rest of the band including Reznor on bass as the lights bring in different colors for the instrumental including a theremin solo from Clouser during the performance as the rest of the band plays their instruments at a high intense approach that gives the fans the encore they’ve waited for. The next song performed is the celebrity-satire of Starf*ckers, Inc. where the energy of the show goes for another high-intensity climax as Jerome Dillon brings in powerful drum hits including a shot of his drum set from behind. Pulsating lights come in as Reznor and the band sings the chorus of “Starf*ckers, starf*ckers, inc.” as the fans go nuts while they’re crowd surfing and moshing and the camera takes you inside the mosh pit. During a brief instrumental interlude, a green light appears as Reznor sings the Carly Simon lyrics of “You’re so vain, I bet you think this song about you/Don’t you, don’t you” and fans repeated “Don’t you” to him and he then sings “F*ck you” while giving them the finger which makes the fans go crazy. Then the song returns to its frenetic power as the fans and the band go nuts while Reznor sings the song and takes the song’s intensity to full tilt at the end.

The last song played on the show is Hurt where the middle screening panel blocks a bright white light behind to give the melancholy mood of the classic ballad. Reznor performs the song in a black setting with a bright light only appearing behind the darkness as Robin Finck accompanies him on the acoustic guitar. The song’s emotional climax comes in during the chorus as Jerome Dillon brings in a haunting rhythm to the song and by the time the chorus comes again for the second and final time, a shot of the fans appears as they sing the song with Reznor to take the show’s emotional setting to its highest peak and when the song finishes. The show is over that includes a great shot from the stage of the band looking at their audience in the arena as the band take their bow and throw water bottles to their fans.

Aside from the main performances that appear in the DVD, the Main Menu features several options like audio configurations and song titles whether you want them on and off. The DVD also includes some bonus features that appear in both DVD discs. The DTS version  of the first disc contains an alternate angle shot of the songs Gave Up, La Mer, The Great Below, and The Mark Has Been Made so the viewer can get a front-view shot of the three screening panels coming up on display to show the film collages by Bill Viola and David Carson.

The Dolby Digital version of the first disc provides options through the angle button to see the screening panels directly through the entirety of that section. The second disc of the DVD (both versions) contains more bonus features that couldn’t fit in for the first disc. First is a picture gallery of the band’s entire world tour from late 1999 to the summer of 2001 including picture of the band recording tracks for the Still album that appears in the deluxe version of the live CD And All That Could Have Been.

Another feature in the second disc is an audio commentary feature from director Bill Viola who comments about the film collages he created with David Carson starting with La Mer. Viola comments on the making of the La Mer collage where he filmed the collages in a pool with water trickling down as if it’s rain and during the scene where a woman is swimming, Viola filmed that scene in the ocean with an underwater camera. For The Great Below, Viola commented that he filmed the opening waves that were filmed in Japan along with the water scenes in the oceans of Big Sur, California including the man who came out of the water backwards. He also commented on the scene of a man walking in poppy fields, which were also filmed in California since he wanted it to have a psychedelic feel for the concert. For The Mark Has Been Made, Viola commented about the opening water scene, which again was filmed in a pool, and the scene of a man walking around a burning fire was filmed up close to the fire and they used special cameras that were fireproof for the film collage.

Now of course, people and fans are thinking, “that’s it, those are the bonus features? Lame”. Nope, there’s more. On the second disc of the DVD, there’s a secret menu of bonus features titled Beneath The Surface that contains three commercial trailers for The Fragile, Things Falling Apart and a commercial that was shown once in 1998 called “ninety-nine”. Also in the secret bonus features, are a performance clip of the song Reptile along with an unreleased video for the song The Day The World Went Away filmed by longtime Underworld video director Tomato that features a falling feather, snakes, and shots of the Mississippi River that segues into a live performance of the song filmed by Rob Sheridan. Finally, there’s a performance of the song The Beautiful People with Marilyn Manson during their performance in New York City at Madison Square Garden.

In the end, the DVD for And All That Could Have Been is a remarkable achievement from Nine Inch Nails as they not only change the rules on how to film a concert but actually give the viewer a taste of the experience of what might you expect at a NIN show. Although the DVD serves as a closing page in another chapter in Nine Inch Nails’ history, it also serves as a reminder of what NIN had accomplished in their U.S. tour and proved even in the world of Britney Spears, ‘Nsync, and other TRL acts, they can still be relevant even if they don’t sell a lot of records. This DVD does carry that connection between a band and its audience and almost gives you the feeling that you’re at that show. Overall, the NIN DVD And All That Could Have Been is a brilliant achievement from Nine Inch Nails and its leader Trent Reznor.

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

With Teeth/Year Zero Era (2005-2007): 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: (The Crow) - (Natural Born Killers) - (Lost Highway) - (Tomb Raider)- (The Limitless Potential) - (Strobe Light)

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)

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older