I went to St. Louis and saw NIN courtesy of my friend Alex's mom, Jessie, who is now my friend as well. Jessie and I had a GREAT TIME!!! It was one of the best things I've done in YEARS. She had a hotel room in the Sheraton which she invited me to share with her, and I arrived on Tuesday night. That night we did some sleuthing and found out the band was staying at the Westin (s few blocks from us) by doing some comparing of the angles of a photo they took and the angles on photos I took. So Wednesday we went and took more photos and confirmed our suspicions. We ate lunch at the Westin in the Clark St. Grill (fabulous food by the way) and later found out while we were in there having lunch they cleared the lobby so NIN could come down and get in their cars!!! We missed having a Trent sighting by mere feet. Go figure, huh! We only ate that once and around 3 pm we got in line.
Jessie went to get the tickets at one window while I held our place in the NIN fan club line. It worked out well that way and we ended up being in the first 50 or so people in the door. :D Most of the crowd was quite a bit younger than us, but there were some people our age. It was nice to see that. And everyone around us in line was friendly. One girl passed out pixie sticks to everyone and then a guy handed out Starburst to people. We had kind of a camaraderie going on.

People talked and joked or listened to music while we sat waiting for the doors to open. Jessie whipped out her duck and blew some Bubbles of DEATH. (Long story, lol!)
They finally opened the doors around 6:30 and we then reformed a long line inside. Around 7 pm they allowed us to go into the arena. Once we got in there I had a cup of water Jessie brought me and that was my last taste of water for quite a while. I'm STILL rehydrating. They sat us down as they slowly let people into the general admission area.
The first band, A Place To Bury Strangers, sucked bad. It wasn't entirely their fault though. The music was ok, but whomever was running sound didn't do a good job cause you couldn't understand any of the lyrics. The music was ok, but they had no stage presence and the bass player just played as if he was standing in a room by himself... It was dead. :P Some people booed them and I felt bad cause they were making an effort, the music wasn't totally bad they just had no stage presence. Plus, opening for NIN has got to be pretty damn nerve wracking.

When it got to NIN onstage, the crowd went nuts!!! Jessie and I were about 2 people back from the rail. That meant we were about 15 to 20 feet from Trent Reznor. The crowd surged forward and it got so tight that I couldn't put my arms down. I sweated through my clothes and so did everyone around me. When we came out of there I was soaked. I did manage to get some spiffy pictures, despite having no control over the swaying of the crowd and the occasional surges forward. There were a couple of times I thought I was gonna be totally crushed, but I managed to survive. The weird thing about it is that you instinctively try to brace yourself against being pushed and with a crowd like that you really can't fight that much, so today my calves hurt and the muscles are knotted up so badly I'm in a great deal of pain. But anyway, here's some of my pictures of Trent Reznor. No Zoom used. :D



So, in conclusion, let me point out that I'm 40 and Jessie is older than I am. We held the line. No little punk kid pushed his way in front of us. We are hardcore and damn proud of it. And I have to say a BIG thank you to Jessie. This was seriously one of the best times I've EVER had. I can't thank you enough. Love you bunches!