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Nine Inch Nails Headline Dull River City Rock Fest


     The sixth annual Bud Light River City Rockfest returns to San Antonio’s AT&T Center grounds September 22 with a largely dull lineup, save for Nine Inch Nails and few select others. One of the most important and influential industrial bands of the late 80’s to now, Nine Inch Nails is set to headline the awfully named festival alongside bores Stone Temple Pilots and Bush, two acts well past the “beat a dead horse to life” phase who should have bowed out gracefully at the peaks of their career, or at least when key members were still alive (Pilots). The only other acts that can possibly save this massive disappointment are Suicidal Tendencies, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, and Primus.
   
     This lineup is upsetting for many reasons, mainly because Nine Inch Nails will likely play to a number of crickets. See, these types of festivals are meant to showcase an eclectic variety for many to enjoy, but when paired up with Hellyeah, Drowning Pool and Yelawolf, it’s a huge blow. Maybe I’m biased because I’ve been a devoted NIN fan for half of my life (I’ve seen them over a dozen times and in multiple states) and they deserve to play a lineup that is worthy of their legacy. They played at Los Angeles’s Fuck Yeah Festival last year alongside Slowdive, Iggy Pop, Bjork and A Tribe Called Quest, which was cool as shit because it’s all relative and each of the mentioned acts have legendary status. This year, they are playing at the Robert Smith-curated Meltdown Festival with Deftones, The Soft Moon, My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai and Placebo, all handpicked by The Cure’s cultish leader. Again, these acts are highly relative and adding that Smith personally hand-selected them for this year’s edition of Meltdown is a total mind fuck. These are the type of festivals NIN should be playing, festivals with smart audiences who get what is going on, not some drunken radio crowd cesspool whose attendees are too dense to appreciate the genius of Nine Inch Nails. To top it off, this is happening in September, one of San Antonio’s hottest, a near three digit inferno month and it’s all taking place in a parking lot, where the heat will reflect off the pavement and cause further misery and aggression, which may be a good thing to get wild to at the end of the day when "March of the Pigs" and "Wish" are played. Drunk off their shit attendees will be fucked up on overpriced shitty beer, will be beating the crap out of each other to shitty metal bands, and will be far too gone to understand what is happening in front of them when NIN take the stage. You need full coherence to absorb NIN’s concise, elaborate stage production and emotionally charged performances. You need full coherence to grasp front man Trent Reznor’s challenging studio work and abstract business model. I'm nervous the band will fall short on deaf ears and squabbled minds. Reznor is quite vocal of his dislikes (remember his comment about Austin’s sleeper audience during the band’s 2009 Wave Goodbye Tour?), so it will come as no surprise if anything unexciting is said about this particular San Antonio gathering.

     I want to remain hopeful, however. San Antonio has been a generally receptive market for NIN and when their fanbase turns up, they turn the fuck up. There are gads of NIN fans here. The band deserves a chance to play a full set after heavy rain cut their set short at last year's Day For Night Festival in Houston, their only Texas date since 2014's touring jaunt. Nine Inch Nails never upsets in delivery, both in the studio and live. They are sounding better than ever as long time touring members/studio collaborators Alessandro Cortini (keys and guitars), Robin Finck (guitars), Ilan Rubin (drums) and Atticus Ross (electronics) have amplified the band’s image and sound to high superiority. Reznor has also expressed a desire for NIN to tour a little more consistently but in shorter amounts, so the fact that he’s bringing the band to San Antonio pretty much means we’re the lucky few of select US dates to be graced by their presence. Plus, they will be returning with a new EP in tow, to be released this coming June. While idiot crowds will run amok, another bummer is we’re only getting a festival set, but as evidenced from previous festival performances, NIN doesn’t stick to the bullshit “hits only” set. They’ve amassed an ardently devoted fanbase that won’t turn their backs on them during deep cuts and experimental pieces, so it's expected we'll get a proper NIN show, just with festival constraints. It’s simply the dummies that want to hear that “fuck you like an animal” song that need to be weeded out.
photo: River City Rockfest Facebook 


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