Another Version Of The Truth
Back in 2008, Nine Inch Nails embarked on a US tour that would last almost half a year. It was dubbed the Lights In The Sky tour and was quite possibly the most technologically ambitious concert experience of recent times, with several screens, lights, effects, and trickery. It was a two-and-a-half hour concert experience that left concert-goers stunned with awe and disbelief at what they had seen. As the story went, it was to be the final large-scale Nine Inch Nails tour as Trent Reznor retired from live concerts last year.
Trent actually planned to team up with James Cameron, famed blockbuster movie director and I presume a very rich man thanks to Avatar, to film these shows but it sadly never came to fruition, as he explained on his official website at the time:
I had an amazing situation lined up that would have allowed me to film the show in 3D with James Cameron’s team for a theatrical release as well as DVD / BluRay, etc. We had an extra date added to the tour that we were going to give away all the tickets for and have a filming party / thank you show.
I made two critical mistakes. One was to approach a certain record company that owns some of the song rights about producing / funding. The second was to allow said company to fuck around as usual for months before saying um… no. We then achieved the impossible by finding alternate production / funding but the timetable is too rushed to get it filmed comfortably with the remaining time left on the tour. This tour and a lot of the personnel involved finish at the end of this leg, so we can’t push filming into Jan / Feb.
It was a shame, and their fans thought so to. So much so that they, in a reaction to Trent’s announcement of a relaxed camera policy for the final shows of the tour, decided to film the final show in Las Vegas for a fan-made, fan-distributed DVD of the tour with good-quality video and audio. Just after that show, Trent decided to release unedited video of three other shows from near the end of the tour via torrents, allowing fans to make their own edits. The team behind the Las Vegas show decided to use this footage and construct a double-show set, one of the footage released by Nine Inch Nails and one of their own footage in Las Vegas, alongside some bonus features.
It was an admirable and ambitious project. After a whole year of working, the team behind the films released the concert based on the official footage, named The Gift, on Christmas Day. Naturally, this created a buzz amongst the community of Nine Inch Nails fans and even prompted Trent himself to do something he rarely does these days – go on Twitter:
nine inch nails fans kick ass. Blown away
After seeing it myself on YouTube, I can understand why.
The project that the team, named This One Is On Us, undertook was unbelievably demanding. They were essentially learning how to make a DVD on-the-fly and had no experience in the media industry. They were, however, dedicated enough to ensure that what they made was something that would satisfy fans. They’ve created something that actually rivals many good-quality concert films. It truly is the next best thing to actually seeing them live and, whilst Nine Inch Nails are in concert retirement, we should be reminded often how amazing they were as a live band and how there was truly no other live experience like it.
For information on how to download your own copy, go here. To watch the entire film as a playlist on YouTube, go here. Don’t forget that the final show of the tour in Las Vegas, which was entirely shot by fans at the show, will be available on the 25th Feburary. The special features will be released a month earlier on the 25th January.
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Posted on January 5th, 2010 by Max
Filed under: Features, Gigs
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