Athlete Pictures

Nine Inch Nails Bring Darkness and Light to Seattle for Tour Opener

After a headling slot at Pemberton on Friday night, Nine Inch Nails kicked off their North American tour with a 21st-century marriage of old-school showmanship and bleeding-edge technology on Saturday. With a crack four-piece band in tow — including NIN stage vets Robin Finck on guitar and Josh Freese on drums — an adrenalized, finely-coifed Trent Reznor tore through a two-hour set that leaned heavily on new material and included several choice classics. • Photos: Nine Inch Nails’ “Lights In the Sky” Tour Launches in Seattle As noted in the tour preview, at least half the show featured the band sandwiched between mesh LED curtains alternating evocative visuals, from falling rain to grainy static to an apocalyptic cityscape. The more obscured the band was by special effects, the more a detached, post-YouTube voyeurism haunted the performance. About an hour in, a solid backdrop descended at the front of the stage and the band — now a four-piece, minus keyboardist Alessandro Cortini — stepped in front of it. Standing at the lip of the stage, with Reznor on vibraphone and Justin Meldal-Johnsen on upright bass, they played a 20-minute, mostly acoustic interlude of songs from NIN’s recent Ghosts I-IV. It was a bold move, settling into a subdued, broken-down cabaret swing that was all atmosphere. Reznor swung the microphone like a weapon and ran the stage like an athlete. Twice during the set he pointed out the fact that this was the “first official night of the tour” — a tour, he said, that’s been ongoing for the last 15 years. He didn’t want it to stop, either: After closing with “Head Like a Hole,” the band returned for a half-hour encore. “Hurt” had the entire crowd singing and a few weeping; “In This Twilight,” from last year’s Year Zero ended the set in a downtrodden — but quintessential NIN — manner. Set List “999,999″ “1,000,000″ “Letting You” “Discipline” “March of the Pigs” “Head Down” “The Frail” “Closer” “Gave Up” “The Warning” “The Great Destroyer” “Ghosts

Published: 2008-07-28 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows, More News

Beyond The Neighbourhood by Athlete

The third album from the UK group was self-produced by the band. [Rock, Alternative]

Published: 2007-09-26 Provider: Metacritic

Hot Issue Hits and Misses: Nas and Cory Branan

Rolling Stone’s 2008 Hot Issue spotlights acts like Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend (more on that here). All week, we’ve been taking a look at Hot Issue hits and misses from the past twenty-one years (because nobody’s cultural thermometer is accurate all the time). Hit: “A savior,” we called him. “The hip-hop Proust.” Whatever insane expectations we placed on Nas, the Hot Rapper of 1994, he’s lived up to them. He’s since feuded with Jay-Z and somehow survived, he married the girl who’s milkshake brings all the boys to the yard (Kelis), and he’s one of the few rappers who has credibility enough to claim Hip Hop Is Dead. Unfortunately, Nas’ hotness didn’t rub off on his 1994 Hot List page 64 neighbor, Hot Athlete/Baltimore Orioles Jeffrey Hammonds, who finished his disappointing baseball career in 2005 after playing for six teams over the course of twelve years. Miss: In his 2002 Hot Singer-Songwriter write-up, we (and his Wikipedia page) had the audacity to mention Cory Branan in the same sentence as peers Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes. Branan’s The Hell You Say lead to appearances on David Letterman, Carson Daly and our Hot List, but it would be another four years before Branan’s sophomore album 12 Songs was released to little fanfare. Branan also probably wins the award for Hot Lister with the smallest MySpace following (7,458 fans as of right now). Related Stories: Hot Issue Hits and Misses: “OK Computer” and “Cockamamie” Hot Issue Hits and Misses: The Replacements and Wilson Phillips Hot Issue Hits and Misses: Coldplay and Enuff Z’Nuff

Published: 2007-10-15 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News, RS 10/18/07: Kid Rock (The 2007 Hot Issue)

Victoria Beckham Rocks

David Beckham and The Spice Girls celebrated the New Year in style with a party at a swanky London hotel. The soccer star, who is married to Posh Spice Victoria, joined the reunited girl band for dinner at exclusive restaurant Nobu before heading to Claridge's, where they saw in 2008 with free-flowing champagne. David and Victoria were the first of the party goers to leave at 2am and the handsome athlete stunned onlookers with his newly-dyed grey hair. One said: "He was looking very slick, but h

Published: 2008-01-02 Provider: Hollywood Rag Keywords: Celebrity, David Beckham, Victoria Beckham

Warren Miller: Higher Ground

Warren Miller’s HIGHER GROUND chronicles a dedicated band of the world’s most acclaimed winter sports athletes as they crisscross the globe in search of new and more thrilling ways to experience the ride. For extreme sports athlete Dave Barlia this meant flying 10 feet off the ground at 130 miles per hour, over the slopes of Chamonix. World Cup mogul champion and Olympian Jeremy Bloom had “a life-changing experience” when he went heli-skiing for the first time in the wild backcountry of British Columbia. Set against an adrenaline-pumping soundtrack, legendary athletes — such as big mountain skiers Jeremy Nobis and Seth Morrison, ski-base jumping innovator Shane McConkey, and the sport’s hot-dogging icon, Glen Plake — take us with them on their never-ending quest to reach HIGHER GROUND.

Published: 2008-01-31 Provider: Movielink