Unfortunately, I made the mistake of turning up too early. I was sitting round my home around 3.30pm doing nothing, and thought "This is stupid, I may as well just go down to the show". I got there around 4, and spent three hours listening to really crappy heavy metal and punk bands. I got quite bored, and started doing things like lining up to buy an icecream just to kill 15 minutes.
At around 6.30pm I went over to the front of the stage Alice in Chains were going to be playing, and found it mainly desserted, because there were some crappy Canadian punk band playing on the adjacent one. So I waited half an hour, and found myself around ten rows back from the front when Alice in Chains came on.
It was an interesting group of people watching their set - I saw one group of three guys with one wearing a Pearl Jam shirt, the other a Tea Party one, and the third Faith No More. In a sea of tattooed and pierced punk rock kids, there was just a little island of regular thirty-ish guys, who looked like me and my friends.
Alice in Chains came on at about 7pm - the three original, non-dead members, with new singer William DuVall. Who may be the coolest looking rock star ever. Kind of like Shaft fronting a grunge band.
I'd forgotten what a great guitarist Jerry Cantrell is, his lead playing was a lot more complicated than I remember on record. And while they didn't quite nail the exact sound of Layne-era Alice in Chains, it was pretty damn close.
After their set I moved 50 metres to my left and waited for Nine Inch Nails. I was really looking forward to seeing them, but the early start was starting to take its toll on me, and part of me just wanted to go home. Nevertheless, they didn't disappoint. Playing as a four piece, they mainly covered songs from their first few albums. Highlights were "Terrible Lie", "Suck", and their encore performance of "Wish", with half of Dillinger Escape Plan joining them on stage. Amazingly noone got injured during this song.
Overall I was glad I went, although next time I'd stick to the plan and only go for bands I wanted to see.
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