The Way Out Is Through : 20000814

When I hear some complain that NIN’s concerts aren’t as violent as before, I think they’d better go away,
if they don’t enjoy concerts because of not being dark or not being violent.

There would be lots of musicians who sing of a darker world, if you look for. Or you may as well keep staying and say, “I miss former NIN”. That is one of ways of loving NIN.Flowing and changing are one way and keeping staying in one world is another way of living. Both are correct. Either isn’t wrong. The question is just which you choose.

As Trent seems to have chosen the former and decided to change, he won’t always be the same as before. So, it is natural that he doesn’t do the same stage performances on the latest tour as before. Sounds are also pretty liberated on the recent tour, compared to the sounds on previous tours that were heavy. Even when he sings the old songs with the old lyrics, it sounds like he wants to say, “I used to be so, but…” It’s because there isn’t a negative aura in his recent performances clearly.

Obviously it seems he used to follow the process where he discharged negative emotions inside him on stage, stirred audiences by hurting everything on stage including himself, made audiences sympathize with him and unified with audiences. I think these were the activity to communicate between the stage and audiences, and to gain catharsises, making each other as catalyst, that is to say, to derive a temporary sense of inward security that they need each other.
When I watch the old stage performances from the current viewpoint, I find Trent’s act very transient and there was always something like frailty in spite of a gloomy atmosphere in venues.

When he sings on stage on the recent tour, I feel he radiates pure aura. This aura doesn’t seem like artificial. It’s just like air. Standing in the midst of it, it seems as if he shows “something” coming from inside, something coming out spontaneously held on his palm, not something he vomits from inside. It is the thing called “life”, which is what only he has got and which is just for him. No one else can get it or make it.

And audiences are in venues, join in communication with him and witness “his life”. Do you know the value of “it” held on his palm so casually? Showing his life in public like this means he does stake his life on his work where he makes songs, sings them, builds his own world and hands it to people. Therefore I feel as if I dive into his mind when I watch his recent stages.
I have a feeling that I am loved by him, when I am involved in the one-and-half-hour-odd fine world of his. A feeling that he loves this huge space of the venue, including me.

Since there isn’t perfect understanding or perfect amalgamation between person and person, one communicates with another to try to convey themselves.

I think Trent may do that via music. If one faces him as a listener, he definitely loves that person who is a listener to means of communication. He tries to tell something. But, if that listener doesn’t get anything from his words, that is his music, or have any interest in them, they must leave him sooner or later. On the other hand, there will be people who are so obsessed that they cannot help but stop. I think music makes it possible to communicate with someone, to convey something.

When he is on stage, I can see his figure and he seems even more eager to tell me his love for the world that he has built.
So I also throw my feelings back to him loudly: I love you and this world of yours too. Probably I also try hard to communicate with him in that venue. Although I just send my feelings to him as I wish, I always feel as if I am taken to his heart somehow.

How on earth did he keep face to face with himself much enough to be able to offer the venue like this? Did he keep hating anything and come to an extreme where he couldn’t hate any stronger? As I don’t see any negative image like “hatred” in his current figure, I don’t think he has a hatred now or have any idea of what “it” really was. I feel it is something past that he mentions as “I remember that.” Not only the present Trent is beautiful superficially, but I feel in him depth that swallows darkness. It’s just like the open sea, where you find tremendous pressure and depth beneath graceful waves.

I feel that he has led to his present status by choosing the way that he swallows hatred and control it rather than that he condenses hatred and dwells upon it. No one can prevent him from seeking for his happiness and it’s wrong to prevent. If you want him to be as he used to, you should stay in the past and be with his former self. Since life is one-way, all you can do is to go ahead or to stay.

I think it’s wrong that you want him to be more miserable, to arouse greater hatred than before, to promote it and to sing a song that is like an olio of hatred. Whenever I hear that, I think those who say so should fall into a miserable situation themselves and relish his own unhappiness.
As The Man’s life is only for him, there is never a fellow traveler. No one can be The Man himself. Therefore no one can take The Man’s life.

No one can take him as a fellow traveler. Never.
Because he already passed there. “The Way Out Is Through.”