By Melissa Andrews
Fans gathered en masse at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre looking for a bit of nostalgia. Some were there to relive Perry Farrell’s early 90’s Lollapalooza tour. Others who weren’t even born at the time were there to find out what they missed. There were definite highlights to this performance but this tour, as almost all other of the nostalgia tours didn’t quite live up to the days of old.
Opening was Street Sweeper Social Club. The band’s debut album is scheduled for release June 16, 2009 (hey, that was yesterday! – ED). It’s collaboration of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Boots Riley. The band’s alternative rock funk sound acted as background music to the masses waiting in line-ups at the alcoholic beverage stations and over priced merch tables (so it was kinda like their album then, huh? – ED).
Nine Inch Nails started their set at exactly 7:45pm. The performance was a slightly modified shorter version of their tour last fall that stopped off at the Air Canada Centre in November. People who were looking for NIN circa 1991 would have been disappointed. There was a couple of instances of knocked over keyboards and guitar feedback but Trent Reznor and his band acted like perfect gentlemen throughout the set. Fans sang along to classics “Head like a Hole” and “March of the Pigs” but when instrumental or newer non radio hits were played, people acted as if they didn’t know how they were going to pass the time until a better song came on. Don’t get me wrong, the show was good but I believe the band isn’t capable anymore of matching their own hype.
A screen over the stage displays women in tiny black bikinis dancing around, the smell of pot smoke is thick in the air and Jane’s Addiction begins playing in the background. The band plays the perfect mix of mostly old classics with a few of the newer songs tossed in. Heroin-thin Perry Farrell dances around the stage as if he’s still in his 20’s getting the crowd excited; Dave Navarro still sticking lit cigarettes in his neck of his guitar. This is the perfect combination of nostalgia.
