Fat girls sure can dance...but should they?

Saturday night I went to one of best concerts I've ever been to. NINE INCH NAILS at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

We had OK seats, 2nd row in the upper reserve with a nice complete view of the stage. Binocs would have been nice to have, but we really weren't THAT far away. We got there about a half hour late so we missed the first group "Autolux", but that's OK, we saw them a couple years ago and they sucked. Then Queens of the Stone Age came on. They were OK, they played a good mix of their older stuff with a few songs from their latest album. "Burn the Witch" was the highlight of their set.

Then it came time for Mr. Reznor and NIN. I have this to say, Trent Reznor is as big a rock god now as he's ever been. With an elaborate yet simplistic stage design, a translucent projection screen that drops down in front and possibly the best lighting design I've seen in a while his performance was nothing less than amazing. I just awed at how much energy is in his voice and how he's able to maintain that vocal strength throughout the show.

The entrancing "Right Beside You in Time" and Joy Division's "Dead Souls" were the most surprising songs to hear in the set. There were a couple songs that I didn't recognize and supposedly he's been playing songs from his future second part to "With Teeth", so it's possible that either those songs were new or I just need to educate myself better in the NIN catalog. But may I just say that "Head Like a Hole" is probably the best song to end a show with, it really brought everything to a climactic and satisfying close as we bid farewell to Trent and NIN until next time.

My only complaint about the show, which finally explains the title of this "blog", is since we were in the second row, that means that there was a row of people in front of us, obviously. And wouldn't know it, there were about 4 chubby girls in black t-shirts and wearing thick black eyeliner who just couldn't resist the temptation to get up and dance along with the music. After about the second song from NIN, we couldn't take it anymore and moved one section over to where for some reason the entire front row was empty. So we sat, put our feet up and enjoyed the show comfortably, which I think is the best and most effective way to take in a NIN show. The dancing chubbers reminded me of an old SNL sketch where they were at a Phil Collins concert and this one fat and drunk chick kept dancing while all the adult contemporaries were sitting and trying to enjoy the show. Now, don't get me wrong, I love seeing people dance at concerts, just don't stand right in people's line of sight to the stage. For example, I could see across the arena a pair of girls dancing (quite provocatively, might I ad) in an entry way. And it looked cool because the light behind them created a sexy kind of silhouette, like an opening sequence from a Bond film. So please, girls, fat, average or thin as a toothpick, please dance in more open areas where you're not going to annoy people.

After the concert we went to Mel's with our friends Ben & Leila who just happened to run into us at the BART station afterwards. A word to the wise, never go to a Mel's Diner at 2am...apparently that's when the start doing things like serving wilted/brown green salads, waffles with green onions mixed in the batter and nearly rare burgers even though you requested it to be well-done.