Our Lady of Pain

What's wrong with this picture?

I walk past this every day, and it bugs the hell out of me. However you add it up, whatever obscure numerical system you might use, it's not 24 hours!

Lying bastards!

Actually it was open 24 hours in the beginning, then they realised the only people who went in at 4am were crackheads.

Nine Inch Nails

Okay, you can call me the oldest teenager in town, but I thought they were one of the bands that you ought to see at least once before you die, like Ministry and Rammstein (actually I'd happily see Rammstein again - one of the best nights out I'd had for ages).

Now it must be admitted that our boy Trent hasn't made a good record since The Downward Spiral god knows how long ago, his lyrics are invariably cringeworthy 'O' level angst, and he's getting a little podgy ( he doesn't take his jacket off for the 2 hour set - a technique learnt I'd guess from Steven Seagal). But blimey - these chaps can rawk! And loud enough to actually hurt my ears, which I haven't experienced for a while.

They further endear themselves to me by mostly ignoring the last couple of albums for most of the set and hammering out the good old stuff, then kind of spoil it by doing some less than memorable new numbers and putting on a crowd-pleasing stadium-rock finale. Worst part of the night was the Coldplay moment of a couple of thousand idiots singing along to Hurt while waving their fucking phones in the air. The twats. Johnny Cash did it better, anyway. His version had some genuine emotion, while Reznor just sounds like a whiny goth teenager in need of a good slap.

Incidentally, my new camera phone does some very strange things in low light conditions. Here is Trent singing Hurt:

Which I quite like in an abstract kind of way.