Nine Inch Nails Wave Goodbye club tour photos images pictures |Reznor Finck Meldal-Johnsen Rubin NIN | Atlanta live music photography • band & concert picture galleries, • reviews • interviews

Nine Inch Nails just started their last shows “for the foreseeable future,” as Trent Reznor has decided to focus on other projects for a while aside from live touring. Eleven shows are scheduled: four in New York City, two in Chicago, one in Canada, and four in Los Angeles, culminating in the hottest ticket to get of all: Echoplex.

So far, I’ve been to the first on 22 August at The Bowery in New York, and the second at Webster Hall in New York, where a stunned crowd was able to watch them perform The Downward Spiral in its entirety for the first and last time. Then Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom on 8/28 and 8/29. Tomorrow off to LA for the final four.

Webster Hall, 8/23/09: one of the few pictures I’ve ever gotten of Ilan Rubin. Drummers are hard to catch.

Webster Hall, 8/23/09. There is a smaller 3/4 figure version of this shot on my Flickr.

NYC, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Trent, Robin, Heresy. This is the third song on The Downward Spiral and right about now is when people might have started to have a tiny inkling that maybe, just maybe, they were going to play the whole thing. But I don’t think people really believed it was happening until Closer broke into Ruiner. Once it got past A Warm Place, which had never been played live before this show, well if they didn’t understand by that point they probably didn’t know the name of the guy up there singing.

NYC, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Robin has just walked over to Justin’s side, where there was an equipment case right next to the edge of the stage, and he’s about to toss himself backwards into the crowd.

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: It was incredibly hot in there, the hottest I’ve been at any show ever, even worse than Webster where the entire band was soaking wet within about 2 songs. This is at the end of Burn; I have a few of these when Trent is wringing the sweat out of his shirt and onto his guitar while I guess Robin looks on completely grossed out, or maybe that’s fascination, or envy that he can’t do the same since he has to keep playing.

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: Trent and Robin

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: Justin. It was very difficult to take any pictures at this show due to the crowd, where I was, the heat, and the girl next to me who filmed the entire thing and thus blocked my view of about half the stage for the whole show. I only got a couple of pictures of Justin and even though they’re not really that great wanted to include at least one.

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: Robin, again not a great picture but I got so few overall. Not a good photography night for me.

Chicago, Aragon, 8/29/09

Chicago, Aragon, 8/29/09 – Burn

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09

I was supposed to have a pass for the second show in Chicago and so did not bother getting there early, and when I arrived I found out they had all been canceled for the night. So I had no chance of getting in front or anywhere with a good view. I ended up mostly standing near the entrance to the side stage and so the majority of my pictures are of Robin in the few seconds I could catch him in between mics and light stands. This was shot with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR.

New York, Bowery Ballroom, 8/22/09: Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Trent Reznor, Ilan Rubin in the back (as usual, so hard to get pictures of him). This was fairly near the end of the show, when I had changed to my 85mm f/1.8 lens. Still not quite long enough though.

New York, Bowery Ballroom, 8/22/09: Trent Reznor, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ilan Rubin, Robin Finck: first moments walking onto the stage. Trent looks like he’s already singing but the song was Somewhat Damaged and there are drums in the intro so I don’t see how he could be, unless it was on a track.

Bowery marquee… spent many hours looking at this without having a ticket, hoping. By some miracle, one appeared at 6:00 to a lucky few of us. One of the NIN crew came out and took six names, of which mine was not one (I was off chasing another crew guy who was giving out tickets in various spots around the city), until my friend who was there told him she would forgo her own rightful spot and give the ticket to me because I wanted to see them more badly than she did. I think this confused him greatly: this was probably the hardest ticket to come by for NIN in the last 4 years, if not longer. He just stared at her, then put us both down on the list and said he’d find a way. And an hour later, we were let in first. Magic.

New York, Bowery Ballroom, 8/22/09

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Robin Finck flings himself back into the crowd during March Of The Pigs.

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09
Trent Reznor

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Trent Reznor, Robin Finck | Heresy

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ilan Rubin, Trent Reznor, Robin Finck | First shot after they came on, the opening moments of Mr. Self Destruct, before anyone but me and a few others knew what was coming. (I had seen the setlist before the show started.)

Tim

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.
Any chance (legally) you could make some wallpapers with these?
Tim

Sep 08, 2009 @ 8:24 am

maryelle

Hi Tim, you’re welcome and thanks. I have not thought about designing the images specifically for wallpapers but maybe I’ll try it. It would take more work to make them the same aspect ratio as most monitors are, so it depends how much is involved. If I decide to do it, I’ll put a notice up about it. Thanks again for stopping by. If you are interested in other pictures, you should check out the previous posts if you haven’t yet; I did 12 or 13 shows on the NIN|JA tour also, and via Flickr you can see my Lights In The Sky tour pictures from last year.

Your avatar reminds me that I need to put one up!

Sep 08, 2009 @ 2:51 pm

Tim – btw you look super familiar. Were you at any of the shows? I think I met or saw you, or your clone… :-P
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Sep 08, 2009 @ 2:54 pm

billy

Awesome shots!! Thanks so much for sharing!!!

I remember seeing you on the balcony level and I was damn jealous of your gear. I remember checking out your 70-200mm f/2.8 and was wondering what kind of awesome shots you’ll get out of it, and man they’re awesome!!

I only have an entry level nikon with a 50mm f/1.8 and I was behind a bunch of tall guys. Here are some shots I took, not pro shots like yours at all but a different perspective.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31896098@N07/sets/72157622152919435/

thanks again

Sep 17, 2009 @ 6:56 pm

Hi Billy, thanks so much. Ha, yeah that lens is an eye-catcher! That was a great show, probably my favorite ever in (I just counted) 52 shows. Your shots are pretty good esp. given that you must have been terribly knocked around on the floor! And really, sometimes it’s not about having “great” shots, it’s about the experience and the memories. Anyway thanks again for the kind words, I really appreciate it. I still have quite a few to put up. Nice one of Ilan coming soon–drummers are so hard to get and I barely have any pictures of him!

Sep 17, 2009 @ 10:03 pm

I’ll have to agree with you, Webster Hall WAS my favorite NIN show of all time. Between my first NIN show(mr. self destruct 1994 when robin injure his hand) and the Wave Goodbye show, the only two NY/NJ nin shows I missed were club shows (Hammerstein and House of Blues), so my last minute “got lucky to get in” Webster Hall experience were out of this world(not to mention the downward spiral surprise which knock most of us off of our feet).

anyways, i’m not much of a photographer, but I’m more involved in NIN remixes. check it out when you get a chance. Thanks again for sharing those shots!!

http://remix.nin.com/play/mix?id=10446

Sep 18, 2009 @ 12:31 am

Shannon

Hello Maryelle,

Man, I was hoping to meet you during Labor weekend at the Wiltern! I wrote to you previously on Flickr in response to Nikon cams in general and I was also at the AZ and Chula Vista shows; however, did not meet you in person. Update: I have chosen to upgrade from my D60 to a D3000s! I know… it’s going to be crazy but a wonderful learning experience. I’m also planning to move to Portland, OR next year to attend school for my master’s degree. I’ll take my Nikons with me, for sure during this move, as I will be CRAZY to EVER sell my camera equipment ever again. You are amongst my top 3 favorite photographers. I just want you to know this: You inspire me greatly, and, are so humble and informative. One more question for you… noise. Does your D300 REALLY take a lot of noise away at ISO 1600-3200 that my D60 is not able to? I’m really concerned with noise and shoot mostly in low light situations. My D60 is great but I want to progress. Through research, theD300s will meet my needs. Does Lightroom allow a more “noiseless” shot? I’m willing to invest whatever necessary to make my future shots as noiseless as possible (live and sports, not portraits). You’ve been such a great influence on me. Your response is much appreciated. One day I would love to buy you a cup of tea/ coffee/ beer/ shot/ water/ your preference. You are a fantastic photographer.
-Shannon

Sep 18, 2009 @ 2:15 am

Hi Shannon, nice to hear from you again! I wish we had met; I always have a big list of people and I often don’t end up finding them at shows as it’s just too hectic. But online is almost as good. I’ve met so many great people over the computer; 25 years ago it would have been viewed as impossible.

Anyway: great about the camera! Do you mean the D3000s or the D300s? I don’t know much about the 3000 but of course I do about the 300, and the new one with the video seems pretty sweet. So regarding noise: level of noise really depends on the exposure. The D300 that I have does do much better at low light than my backup (D40) but it’s not like every single shot out of the camera is noise-free. There’s a magic formula, which I don’t entirely know the secret to LOL, and sometimes shots at high ISO are very low noise and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes shots at lower ISO are noisy. This is mostly due to incorrect exposure: underexposure increases and shows off noise. I know it sounds like old advice, but the best thing to do is practice practice practice. The more you shoot at low light the better you’ll get at judging the correct exposure. And definitely invest in a noise-reduction program and learn how to use it. I use Neat Image for 16-bit images, and will sometimes do further NR by selectively using the blur tool, smudge tool, or the despeckle filter in Photoshop. You can save a lot of noisy images with the right amount of NR and using it correctly (i.e., not leaving people’s skin with that plastic look; I always selectively brush away NR on people’s faces otherwise they look like mannequins).

Are you familiar with the concept of “exposing to the right”? It means exposing so that the histogram is slightly bunched up to the right, which is a very slight overexposure, because it is MUCH easier to correct and then get rid of noise when it’s an overexposed picture rather than underexposed. I’m not talking white-out images, just slightly overexposed. You can then adjust the levels & curves and bring the overexposed parts down to normal, while also darkening the shadows where the noise shows the most. And there’s always the option of making it B&W.

Lightroom itself doesn’t affect how noisy the images are. There is an NR function in Lightroom but I never use it; I prefer Neat Image. I would also advise shooting in raw if you are not already as it is much easier to correct and adjust raw images than JPEGs. I have recently been using primarily Capture NX (Nikon’s own software for NEF files) for editing and although it’s got quite a learning curve, I am really loving it now. It has, for me, the greatest potential for adjusting those images not “perfect” right out of the camera. Lightroom beats it though as a cataloging system and for batch processing of a large # of images. Very handy when shooting concerts, for instance, where I have to get the shots off to someone very quickly.

Thank you so much for the compliments. I am really flattered and humbled, it means a lot to me that you are enjoying my pictures. I wish we had met. Next NIN tour! Feel free to comment or email me anytime if you have questions.

Sep 18, 2009 @ 2:13 pm

Ryan

Are these available in prints?
They are fucking amazing and would love to have a few up on my wall, they’re pretty boring at the moment.

Dec 09, 2009 @ 12:21 am

Hi Ryan, I do sell a small number of limited edition fine art prints but what is available depends on the print and the show. I have a Prints page up in the nav bar; if you are interested in anything you could send me an email at maryelle@meowhousemedia.com and let me know which you are thinking of.

Please note that I don’t usually crop pictures to suit a size preference; if the picture is in 2:3 format, I only print it in that aspect ratio: so it could be an 8×12 or a 10×15 or a 12×18, etc., but not a 16×20. They’re meant to be seen at the composition I finished them at. Anyway if you’re interested just drop me a line, and thanks very much for the compliment!

Dec 09, 2009 @ 9:58 am

Karen

Hey Maryelle!

Can’t believe it’s been a year already…these are without question the finest NIN pics, ever.
Beautiful shots!

Aug 24, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

Hey Karen, thanks so much! Yeah it doesn’t seem like a year. It’s all really clear to me still, especially these last shows.

Thanks again. I consider myself so lucky to have been a part of it and to have been able to capture some of it. So many great people I now know who I never would have met otherwise!

Aug 25, 2010 @ 11:49 am

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Nine Inch Nails Wave Goodbye club tour

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