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I was browsing Helsingin Sanomat in the cafeteria during lunch today and noticed that Nine Inch Nails is coming to Helsinki next spring. Now, I used to listen to NIN a lot quite a few years back, but after a while it seemed that Trent Reznor was just repeating himself and lost (some) interest. Then, about two years ago he came out with the album With Teeth – and it rocked. Admittedly, it didn’t tread much new ground musically, but it was tight, streamlined and, yes, much more melodic than his “in-between” albums. It got me somewhat interested again.

Then that summer NIN came to Finland for the first time, luckily to Provissirock which we were going to anyway. I wasn’t expecting all that much, frankly, but was pretty much blown away – that gig was one of the best festival shows I’ve ever seen. The energy in that tent was just incredible, and the blasts of wall-to-wall sound seemed like a physical thing sometimes. Pretty much all the songs sounded better than their album versions, which says a lot - Reznor is a studio perfectionists, and the albums are good. However, they don’t really bring across the raw power of the live show (Iggy Pop has the same problem, actually). I’ve heard praises of NIN live shows before, and now I understand why. They rock live.

All that as a prelude to the fact that I now tried to get tickets for the April concert. As always, the Lippupalvelu web service tried to offer crappy seats to me in the beginning, so I just gave up for a while and tried again in the afternoon – and lo & behold, now I got excellent seats, on the sidelines really close to the stage. I guess that someone’s reservation had expired. Waiting a bit seems to be a workable strategy – unless the show sells out at once, of course.

I don’t expect as good a show as Provinssirock – the hockey stadium isn’t as intimate as a festival tent, and NIN doesn’t (maybe) have us much to prove now. Still, it should be good. One hopes.