Why I'm Not Going to Nine Inch Nails

An open letter to Trent Reznor.

Dear Trent:

Do you know who understands his audience's demographics? Stewart Copeland. When describing the Police's reunion tour they embarked on a decade and a half after their commercial peak, he entitled the section of his memoir "Lock Up Your Mothers." Know who else understands his audience's demographics? David Gedge. In a recent interview, he noted that early Wedding Present fans are returning to their shows now that their kids have gone off to university ("empty nesters" as we'd say in these parts). I ask because you claimed, when putting tickets on sale for your latest tour only at the venue box offices, that your aim was to get tickets into the hands of real fans, and I don't think you understand the demographics of your fans.

I think I qualify as a real fan. To this day, I count the Nine Inch Nails/Jesus & Mary Chain show in March 1990 at the Trocadero in Philly as one of the greatest concerts I've seen in my life, and I've seen hundreds of bands since then. I still have the Hate 1990 T-shirt I bought when you returned the following month, blowing headliner Peter Murphy off the suburban stage at Glenside's Keswick Theater. I've continued to see your band and buy the albums in the decades since, including picking up Year Zero on the day of release because my baby had just started walking and I needed an emergency babyproofing supply Target run. My holey T-shirt is older than many of the people who will turn up on your current tour.

I can understand your desire to circumvent Ticketmaster. I have issues with Ticketmaster myself, but when a scalper advocacy group(!) is complaining that ticket resale is too difficult with Ticketbastard's Verified Fan program, you should have some confidence that tickets are remaining in the hands of people who intend to come to the show.

Back to my point about understanding demographics. Do you know what people my age (and yours) were doing the day tickets went on sale? They were attending their kids' dance recitals and soccer games. They were running the elementary school fair to raise funds for the PTO. Me? I was attending the Shabbat service my son's sixth grade Hebrew school class was running, the culmination of the year's effort, and probably their last activity as a group before they start taking the bima individually for their bar and bat mitzvahs. In other words, we were being responsible, caring parents who don't have endless hours to stand in line waiting to buy concert tickets at a box office that wasn't set up for volume sales. Do we really need to revert to the old days when scalpers would pay homeless people to stand in line to buy tickets?

I know you have kids, but maybe you don't get the parenting thing. Maybe you send your kids to private school, so you don't understand why PTO fundraising is a big deal for middle class public schools, where it enables us to attract the best teachers because they aren't expected to pay for their own classroom supplies. I know from your lyrics (because I've pored over those) that you have issues with the church and perhaps don't value religion. But supporting our kids through a rite of passage is a big deal. You're outspoken on lefty politics, but maybe you aren't woke about emotional labor and leave all the parenting to your wife. For the rest of us, we might be focused our kids on a Saturday morning, but we'd still appreciate seeing a favorite band from our youth on a Saturday night, whether that means dealing with the expense and hassle of hiring a sitter or bringing our kids along to share an experience we value with them.

So I won't be at your show, but don't feel sorry for me. I'll be a few blocks away seeing CHVRCHES with my kids, with tickets I bought online during my lunch hour. If you aren't familiar, you might like them since they draw heavily on the early '80s synth pop that I listened to in my teens and that influenced NIN. My kids are fans because it sounds like video game music to them. I like that my kids are into them because front woman Lauren Mayberry is not only a charismatic performer, she's also an outspoken feminist.

To quote a song from Love Is Dead, CHVRCHES' latest album, I'm not asking for a miracle. I know you're a creative guy. So, the next time you tour, use some of that creativity to find ways to not exclude the very same fans you claim you're trying to cater to.

CHVRCHES play the Orpheum Theater, 1 Hamilton Place, Boston MA at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, October 20 and Sunday, October 21.