Nine Inch Nails: Points On The Earth Part 8 + Red Rocks

Nine Inch Nails played a killer concert in Denver at Red Rocks on Tuesday, September 3, 2008.

But first, let's catch up on the NIN Points on the Earth treasure hunt. After my brother and I came up empty handed in New York's Central Park, the NIN Lights in the Sky tour moved on to Philadelphia and Lexington, Kentucky. On the way to Lexington, the band dropped another ? [006] in Morehead, KY. [Morehead? Sounds like a fun town to me.]

The clue: "Under the sun." The prize was found at the base of a Days Inn sign off the highway.

The next day Trent Reznor posted a snapshot on the nin.com photo blog of Pho Duy, the Denver restaurant where the band was eating dinner. Fans wondered if there was another prize waiting there.

All that was waiting there was the band. They were growing tired of waiting for the taxi they called to take them back to the hotel. Alessandro Cortini called on NIN fans to save the day. He posted another pic of the restaurant, its address and "We need a ride downtown.care to help? No cabs coming.please help. 6 people need a ride."

Within just a few minutes, their call for help was answered. "Aunt Linda and Ashley" rolled up, and the NIN crew piled into the Lexus. NIN fans to the rescue!

The next day [9/3/08] was the concert at Red Rocks. After a lunchtime adventure at Casa Bonita, PFU Ben and I drove to Red Rocks in Morrison. We hiked up to the amphitheater and took a breather to watch the construction of the stage.

Red Rocks is one of the best places in the world to experience a concert. The only other time I had been to Red Rocks a couple years ago I didn't have enough time to explore the area during the day. The red rocks, the mountains, the view... all absolutely spectacular.

Ben and I hiked around the rocks and found a geocache [not a NIN one] near the venue. A couple hours before the show, we enjoyed catching NIN sound check a couple Ghosts songs.

Then I got word that another ? [007] had just popped up on the Google Earth map. It was somewhere nearby. The clue: "Under the (red) rock."

Go! Go! Go!

We ran out the North exit and back to the car. Ben wrote down the coordinates and read them back to me so I could type them in my iPhone. It looked like the treasure was on the other side of the venue, but it was hard to figure out exactly where. I asked several people for directions along the way, but nobody seemed to know exactly where it was. Ben put the coordinates in my Garmin GPS unit. We parked the car on the street as close as we could to the GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, the GPS was pointing us the wrong way because the coordinates were in the wrong format. I still haven't figured out how to convert the decimal style GPS coordinates into the traditional degrees/minutes/seconds format for my old GPS.

I downloaded a satellite picture of the area to my phone and realized that the ? was way up by a parking lot near the entrance ramp to the venue. Shit! Another long uphill hike.

We ran through the South parking lot up to the trading post. I realized I could put the Google Maps app on my phone on satellite view for a better view of the area. Why didn't I think of that before?! We ran as fast as we could, but between the thin mountain air and two days of rigorous hiking, we were beat. Huffing and puffing. I couldn't breathe deeply enough.

We finally made it to the big red rock we saw on the map. I looked left. Ben went right. For a second I thought I found the envelope, but it turned out to be a white paper bag covered in spider webs. I went back over to the smaller red rocks and looked everywhere. There was already someone else there looking, and after a couple minutes, a whole bunch of other people showed up. Ben and I were looking under every rock we saw, and there were a lot of them. Several of us ran up the hill and heard security guards over at the venue yelling at us to get down. Why is it illegal to climb the rocks?

I got a call from an East Coast NIN treasure hunter trying to help me find it. I looked at the satellite pic on my phone again and figured out it must have been hidden much closer to the base of the rock. I finally felt I knew exactly where to look. Completely out of breath, I struggled to get back down from the rocks...

"Found it!"

A girl's voice yelled the dreaded words. She found the prize right where I was headed, just a few feet in front of me. Missed it by that much. Again!

The girl from Oklahoma was really excited. She found it under the first rock she checked. Lucky girl!

I don't know how we missed it. Ben and I did get a consolation prize though: one of the best concerts ever!

The NIN show at Red Rocks was truly outstanding. Our 4th row view was awesome. The NIN stage show on this tour is without a doubt the best visual experience I've ever witnessed at a concert. The sound was also phenomenal. You could tell the band was putting forth the energy to make this show something special.

The one thing that weirds me out at a venue like Red Rocks that doesn't have a pit is during the crazy songs, I want to go nuts. March of the Pigs without a pit is just plain unnatural. Same for Wish, The Great Destroyer and a bunch of other songs. I'm not talking about moshing and crowd surfing, but I missed the feeling of being on the floor surrounded by a crowd of people jumping up and down, especially when the band is on fire like they were here.

The flip side was that it was really cool to see the nuances of the live show. All the seats in the house are higher up than the level of the stage so you can see the performers from above instead of below.

Alessandro Cortini is a badass on the multitouch Lemur LCD screen. Trent Reznor rocked on the Lemur too. Vessel was really great. This was the first show that NIN played three Year Zero songs before the Ghosts material versus the usual two.

The Ghosts section was particularly amazing. Trent on marimba, Josh Freese on a trash kit with a water jug + other household items + a tall set of water chimes [?], Justin Meldal-Johnsen on upright + electric bass and Robin Finck on mandolin - electric guitar + wooden flute. Alessandro had all kinds of weird instruments too. He played a harmonium [reed organ?] during Piggy by playing the keyboard with one hand and the bellows with other. Super cool. He had all kinds of other DIY-looking noise boxes and effects that I'd love to get a better look at. Keyboard Magazine or somebody needs to do a full writeup on the Ghosts instrumentation pronto. Enquiring minds want to know.

Down In It brought back great memories. Can you believe that song is 20 years old? Reptile started the encore which sacrificed Echoplex, even though it was on the setlist, due to time constraints. Trent spoke of how cold it was and how intimidated they were because normally he just sees a blur of black shirts in the crowd, but this time he saw a million faces instead.

I turned around to see the lighters in the air and everyone singing along to Hurt. Beautiful. The show ended with each band member having his time in the spotlight before exiting one by one from the stage during In This Twilight, until Trent was left alone playing softly on the keyboard. He waved goodbye and walked off stage to the cheers of the audience.

Setlist 9/3/08:

999,999
1,000,000
letting you
discipline
march of the pigs
head down
the frail
closer
gave up
me, i'm not
vessel
the great destroyer
5 ghosts I
6 ghosts I
19 ghosts III
piggy [ghost]
the greater good
pinion
wish
terrible lie
survivalism
31 ghosts IV
only
down in it
head like a hole

reptile
god given
hurt
in this twilight

Overall, the NIN concert at Red Rocks in Denver was one of the best concerts ever. I can't tell you how many times we heard the words "best" and "ever" while walking back to the car. If NIN ever plays Red Rocks again, I will be there.

In the meantime, you can check out the new nin.com or read more about the previous NIN Points on the Earth treasure hunts.

Here's Part 9...

Or go back to the beginning... Part 1...