Nine Inch Nails on Mad Cool: rabid, murky, colossal
The ultimate test for Mad Cool's sound system, which failed twice on Thursday, came with the first ten minutes of Nine Inch Nails' set. If it held up, and it did, it's already made it to Sunday, when South Korean DJ Peggy Gou closes the festival. It was a full-throttle start, with uncontrolled decibels, where the Ohio band unleashed "The Beginning of the End," "Wish," and "March of the Pigs," unhinged songs that speak of dirty sex, alienation, and God, pieces that came out of Trent Reznor's throat in a snarl while his band, with Atticus Ross unleashing synthetic blasts from his keyboard, produced noise and chaos.
Reznor is no longer the same self-destructive, tortured man of the nineties, for whom many predicted a grim existence. But the concerts he performs with his band maintain the suffocating atmosphere of someone who faces this world from the darkest corner. He demonstrated this last night, headlining the second day of Madrid's Mad Cool in an intense show where, if you let yourself go, you'd find that tempting intersection where discomfort and pleasure coexist.
In their official black attire, Nine Inch Nails delighted the many who consider The Downward Spiral , their 1994 album, to be one of the most influential of the 1990s. The band dedicated a good part of its 90 minutes to this work, which has stood the test of time and beyond: perhaps it sounds more contemporary now than it did three decades ago because it speaks to a disjointed world similar to today's.
The recital was a fireball of dense, beastly, tachycardic sounds, a screeching tangle from which, as it progressed, there was no turning back: those who were left behind never recovered their place, and those who managed to jump on the adrenaline train had a great time. Reznor, wiry and well-built, pushed himself to sing with his legs bent and his body hunched over, as if he wanted his permanently angry breath to hit the audience's faces.
A man of few words, he barely managed a couple of "thank yous" and a murmur that sounded like "happy to be here." Despite now being a father concerned about the education of his five children, when he takes the stage he conveys distrust and even danger. We're talking about a musician who recorded his best album, the aforementioned The Downward Spiral, in the infamous house where Charles Manson's gang murdered Sharon Tate . The same man who suffered a heroin overdose that nearly erased him from this world, an addiction from which David Bowie, in part, rescued him with his advice, mentorship, and experience.
The performance, which unfolded amidst purple and red lights and epileptic flashes, concluded with an invincible quartet: The Perfect Drug, The Hand That Feeds, Head Like a Hole, and the chilling Hurt, which Reznor performed, lost in thought, his hands clasped around the microphone stand and his eyes closed. The full moon he enjoyed Thursday with Muse's fireworks this time shuddered.
It was surprising that only around 20,000 people attended this rabid, murky, and colossal show, roughly half the number of people who attended the previous day with Muse. The organizers reported that 49,000 people (many foreigners, mostly British) passed through the Iberdrola Music venue in southern Madrid during the day, the same number as on Thursday. We must deduce, then, that the audience was spread out over several shows yesterday, unlike Muse, who managed to attract a much larger audience.
Alanis Morissette also triumphed last night, singing a lot, well, and almost always with a prominent vein in her neck. She even had to move the microphone away from her mouth on occasion to avoid overwhelming the audience with her power. It's a shame the singer didn't allow professional journalists to photograph her (which is why there are no pictures of her in this report). The Canadian singer was in phenomenal shape. She didn't lose focus even when a musician in her band made a mistake; she stopped the song and, with a knowing gesture, picked up where the instrumentalist had strayed. Dressed simply in what could easily be the clothes she'd put on that morning (black leather pants and a purple T-shirt), she had a smile on her face throughout the performance. When she wasn't singing, she blew a harmonica with more ferocity than style. It was nice to see the fine-tuning of an artist who we've frozen in that post-grunge 1995, the year she released her sensational Jagged Little Pill, which was the centerpiece of her set, delighting the many forty-somethings who filled the grassy lawn of the second stage. In fact, her performance was short: barely an hour.
Benson Boone loves to put on a show. One of his signature acts is performing backflips. Yes, you read that right: a tumbling musician who performs acrobatics during his concert. In the first song, "Sorry I'm Here for Someone Else," he had already performed two backflips. In the third song, "Drunk in My Mind," he had to show off his powerful voice. What high notes... A girl next to this columnist sighed and said, "How handsome." And he's also been given the gift of beauty. This 23-year-old is quite the showman, triumphing especially in his home country, the United States, and in the United Kingdom, and is starting to make waves in Spain, as was evident last night with thousands of people glued to his antics.
His hour-long concert was fun, much better for the upbeat songs than for the sugar-fueled ballads. With his Freddie Mercury-esque mustache, a beacon of light for him, he acted like a good boy, dedicating songs to his mother and father (who were in the venue and he pointed them out for the audience to applaud), leading the crowd with effective "oeees," ingratiating himself by praising how cool Spain seemed to him, recommending that the audience drink water to alleviate the heat (just in case...), and, among other things, managing to make the time fly by. Guess how he closed his concert? Yes: with a flip flop into the pit and shaking hands with the sea while performing his big hit, "Beautiful Things." I wish all mainstream pop were like the kind Boone proposes.
Very much in favor of Jet's garage rock and roll. The Australians represent the most elemental side of rock at festivals where it's increasingly difficult to find bands that celebrate Chuck Berry and the Sonics. That said, it's not a band to occupy one of the prime time slots. Early in the afternoon at a guitar festival like Azkena , well, fine. But at a musical gathering with a transversal vocation like Mad Cool, their presence is anecdotal. A similar thing happened last year with Keane, who also performed during the prime time slot when their syrupy pop was already quite outdated. But Jet was up to the task, eh, and we enjoyed their rock 'n' roll and such, and that killer song, Are You Gonna Be My Girl, that would raise a corpse. And, on top of that, they played a cover of what the singer announced as "Australia's anthem," It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) by AC/DC, which, by the way, they're playing today in Madrid. All very cool, but...
Noah Kahan also caught the eye as the headliner. This time, in primetime, at 11 p.m. Kahan, a 28-year-old American, has been enjoying a very strong popularity in his home country and elsewhere for the past four or five years. Not yet in Spain. His concert drew a large crowd, but it was possible to access the stage doors by dodging the audience and without being pushed around. Kahan performs a pop-folk song that's somewhere between, and without being too precise, Mumford and Sons and Ed Sheeran. He sings well, and his songs have the dubious quality of always being enjoyable. With the ballads, which were plentiful, many of the people far from the front rows lay down on the synthetic grass.
Those who wanted to get moving made their way to Stage 3 to meet the ever-present Kaiser Chiefs. The venue was clearly too small, and the sound, at least from the sides and back, was muffled, as if they were playing in a pool of water. A few shouts of "I can't hear you" were heard.
Today, Saturday, is the last big day (Sunday is an electronic brunch ) with Olivia Rodrigo, Justice, Arde Bogotá, and 30 Seconds to Mars. For now, the Mad Cool 2025 champions are Nine Inch Mail.
EL PAÍS
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