Nine Inch Nails and Ladytron at the Manchester Apollo (Night 2)

Night number 2 started on a positive note with the splendid performance by Ladytron. The prior night was their first opening show for Nine Inch Nails and it was complicated by monitor problems for all of the Ladytron members. This was not the case tonight as the sound was dialed in and the bass was kicking. It was the same set as the previous night but I will never get tired of hearing "Seventeen", "High Rise" and "Destroy Everything You Touch". I hope they are able to switch up their songs once they get the kinks ironed out. Nine Inch Nails attacked the stage with the opening chords of "Somewhat Damaged". The energy level remained high as a blistering version of "You Know What You Are?" devasted the crowd with some brutal drumming courtesy of Josh Freese. The crowd was treated to the pig double feature of "March of the Pigs" and "Piggy". During "Piggy", Trent grabbed a huge spotlight and jumped down into the crowd and sang along with the fans. There will be video appearing somewhere I am sure. "We're In This Together" took me by surprise as this is another song in Nine Inch Nails lore that hasn't been played frequently in a live setting. The song also featured Alessandro Cortini on guitar to enhance the main riff. "With Teeth" was played and featured some tambourine by Trent Reznor as well as some acoustic guitar by Alessandro. Aaron North gave another blitzkrieg like performance punctuated with a leap into the crowd during "Head Like a Hole". I was also impressed with his E-Bow solo on "Hurt". "Burn" seemed like it had a more synth featured intro with assistance by Aaron North who sauntered over to the keyboards to help Alessandro create a noisy intro. Aaron must have won the guitar lottery as he played 5 or 6 different guitars throughout the whole show. Some of his guitars include a Fender Jaguar, a Gibson Les Paul with a Bigsby tremolo, a Yamaha and his staple guitar the Hagstrom. The show finished with Trent stating, "I will see ya in the Summer". I think I might need a summer vacation to recover from this one.