How To Destroy Angels, April 10 at the Fox Theater

When the line-up for Coachella '13 was released we made the momentous decision to not go.  We had been on the fence about it anyway, maybe a little worn-out after doing the festival for so long (every single year up to that point in my case) and we were maybe looking for an excuse to skip one year and break our streak.  The line-up for that year was that excuse.  I actually didn't think it was a horrible line-up, and it probably would have been great out there, but even I'll admit that it wasn't nearly up to the standard of years before.  We probably could have made a go of it but we decided to sit it out.  Our usual crew might have been an easier sell, just to have the weekend out in the desert, but we decided to do another festival, which ended up being Outside Lands in August anyway.  In the years before, around the Coachella festival we had toyed with the idea of seeing the bands in the much smaller local shows they would often play, so we put that into effect.  That way we could get a more concentrated show, cheaper (overall), and usually a fuller set, even if it wasn't all in one place.  We did three shows and How to Destroy Angels was the first.  I hadn't planned to see them but Carla scored tickets the day of and we were off.  As much of a fan as I've been of Reznor and NIN all along, I was a little cold on HTDA.  I always loved NIN for the anger and the angst, which was perfect for me in college.  Without having to do it purposely, that rage cooled as I got older, and it probably did with Reznor as well.  HTDA is still moody but it's more atmospheric and like a sound-scape, which is what Reznor was trying to pull NIN toward but it didn't seem to take well (I never did bother with the Ghosts I-IV album(s)).  That there's a female singer didn't bother me.  I remember hearing years ago that Reznor had always wanted to put together a band with a female singer but clearly that couldn't happen until he met and married who is, presumably, who he had in mind. So it's a fulfillment of a project he had on a burner for a long time, and I wouldn't fault him for stretching out and pursuing other forms of art and music, but the new band just didn't stick much with me.  Reznor also put himself in the background of it as much as he could, but his wife didn't really step up to be the front of the band, probably knowing that she couldn't shake the fact that he was still back there.  It's a band that might have tried to exist without a front-person but it created a vacuum and everyone was looking for Reznor anyway.  Live, he came out a bit more but never to a NIN level.  Really, it was just a little thing.  Thinking it was going to be a copy of NIN, even one with a lady singer, is going about it the wrong way, and it's unfair.  But the music on its own, comparatively, was flat.  I was hoping for something else, something with some more angst and fuel behind it, not something that could be out-takes from a soundtrack with some words tacked on.  But the live performance, their first as a band, they did as much with as they could: a gloomy but electric, rather spectacular light-show with rich visuals behind them (Reznor can afford it) and music that could deeply envelope even a casual listener.  But they didn't move much and generally they were obscured by sheets or screens in front of them, which didn't reveal much of an individual identity for the performers or the band as a whole, though it might have helped.  I don't know if the other big NIN fans found a different thing in HTDA but they at least gave it a chance, as I did.  And if a person was into it, being a NIN fan or not (we'd be on to the next generation now anyway), then they probably found just what they wanted in the performance. It wasn't for lack of Reznor trying, even if it was harder to sell to anyone who already knew him.  I don't know how well the show stood up in the desert but there in that relatively intimate setting, it did well enough, for what it was, which wasn't NIN but at least it was Reznor (who went back out again as NIN just the following summer, though we ended up skipping it at Outside Lands).  DIIV opened but we missed him/them.

How To Destory Angels' set-list:
"The Wake-Up"
"Keep It Together"
"Parasite"
"And the Sky Began to Scream"
"Ice Age"
"The Believers"
"How Long?"
"Welcome Oblivion"
"BBB"
"The Space in Between"  ("Between the Spaces" rework by SONOIO)
"Fur-Lined"
"The Loop Closes"
"A Drowning"

"On the Wing"
"Strings and Attractors"
"We Fade Away"