"This is almost what it felt like to be there," promises Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor on their new live DVD liner notes. It's not an empty boast. Sure, concert videos have almost universally sucked pathetic runner-up prizes for those without tickets, complete with bootleg-quality music pumping out your wimpy TV speakers. But with the evolution to DVD, suddenly the quality restrictions have vanished. Recorded on digital video over the course of 2000's Fragility 2.0 tour, And All That Could Have Been gives a pretty decent approximation of what the tour looked like. There are lots of crisp crowd-level shots (all the better to see those crazy jumbotron collages), the ability to switch camera angles and no cheesy, MTV-style camera swoops.
But what really makes this worthwhile is the dynamic surround sound that loses almost nothing in the translation of NIN's greatest hits understandably heavy on The Fragile from stage to screen. But if that's not enough, troll the internet for clues on how to find the hidden goodies commercials, videos and, best of all, press enter after Trent covers Carly Simon ("I betcha think this song is about you") and his no-longer-estranged protégé Marilyn Manson suddenly joins in on "Starfuckers, Inc." and sticks around for "Beautiful People." Cool.
But what really makes this worthwhile is the dynamic surround sound that loses almost nothing in the translation of NIN's greatest hits understandably heavy on The Fragile from stage to screen. But if that's not enough, troll the internet for clues on how to find the hidden goodies commercials, videos and, best of all, press enter after Trent covers Carly Simon ("I betcha think this song is about you") and his no-longer-estranged protégé Marilyn Manson suddenly joins in on "Starfuckers, Inc." and sticks around for "Beautiful People." Cool.
