Live: And All That Could Have Been

Album Review

Trent Reznor's And All That Could Have Been album was a very average mixed bag of his biggest songs live. The video and DVD that accompanied the album was supposed to be the whole package, where you could see the things that the album simply couldn't. Well this is just like the album: a mixed bag with some yummy treats hidden throughout. The band dressed themselves up like mid-'80s Alien Sex Fiend, covered in makeup, dirt, and leather. To their credit, they are extremely animated on-stage, running around and interacting with each other and generally putting on a good live show. But the difference between being in the front row and watching it on video starts to creep in around the fifth song. The first few tracks are all high-energy, savage attacks on some older songs that really make it seem like the video is going to be something special. But when "Piggy" kicks in, the relaxed tempo and jazzy bass part bring down the energy level, and Reznor takes the slow-build approach to getting the audience back. The video stays interesting for a few songs after, but by "Gave Up" it becomes obvious that not being there live takes away the effectiveness of the increasingly bizarre lighting and background videos. And when the videos start up in the background, the band seems to move around a lot less. The tracks they perform after this (which are mostly from The Fragile) are mostly their brooding, headier tracks. The camera begins to linger on the video screen, where at least something is happening, even if it is mostly footage of people hanging upside down and other weird stuff. Reznor does his best to seem like the mad carnival barker on his stage, but there just isn't enough going on to keep it interesting. The lights go crazy, the band jumps around, the screen shows something screwy, then repeat. "Wish" does manage to inject some life into things, but it isn't until "Closer" that the band really seems to get their momentum back. By "Just Like You Imagined" they become a powerhouse of sound, trading parts back and forth, running around, and generally living up to their own hype. The rest of the video manages to keep that dynamic going, and at the end of "Hurt" it does feel like it was worth watching the video once. Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine watching this more than a few times. Reznor and the gang should have been recording their live shows in 1990, when their on-stage antics were near legendary and every show ended with smashed keyboards and guitars littering the stage. It seems like he has become content with being the Robert Smith of his generation: making good pop music under the guise of a genre that he has obviously outgrown and outlived while alternately allowing that image to rule his career. And much like Smith, he has made an overhyped live video about 13 years into his career that points out more of his faults than his strengths. This is nowhere near being a bad performance, but what is perhaps even worse is that it is a very average performance from one of the mightiest live acts of the '90s.