Another Version Of The Truth: Las Vegas

March 5, 2010 1:33 PM

Las Vegas is the final part of the Another Version of the Truth collection, and is exclusively community-created. Filmed entirely by fans and co-ordinated by Alex Gamble, this release saw the community fly in from around the world, donate technology, skill, and even airfare (fans raised money to send chaonatic, a valued taper, to the concert) to document the final performance of Nine Inch Nails' stunning 2008 tour. Over 200GB of footage was collected, which was meticulously edited together by a team comprising of people from all over the world.

The third DVD documenting Nine Inch Nails' Lights In The Sky tour has finally been released into the wild for download. Currently only available in dual-layer DVD or YouTube versions, other formats are bound to be created and offered as well.

This release completes the three-DVD set assembled by This One Is On Us, a motivated fan community dedicated to creating quality concert documents from the final years of Nine Inch Nails touring.

(Previously, also previously)

posted by hippybear (17 comments total)

fans raised money to send chaonatic, a valued taper, to the concert

Wow. chaonatic is a lucky lad/lass. He/she keeps you up-to-date on YT uploads via twitter, should you be so intrigued.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:56 PM on March 5, 2010

Kudos to Trent for having the balls to let his fans express their appreciation. From the traditional music biz standpoint, this has to look like suicide. Fans putting videos of your performance on the web for free is not going to grow your bottom line. But, if you look at it as free advertising for your shows, it's a huge win and it cost NIN nothing. That it's fan made really only underlines the quality of the artist.
posted by doctor_negative at 2:05 PM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Does anyone else miss the Year Zero ARG? That was some fun stuff.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:08 PM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Over 200GB of footage was collected...

Remember when this used to be measured in hours?
posted by Mister_A at 2:09 PM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

From the traditional music biz standpoint, this has to look like suicide.

Reznor does a hell of a lot more than this. He's given away concert footage before, posted torrents of unreleased DVDs on The Pirate Bay instead of letting them sit in a vault somewhere, operates a site hosting GarageBand projects of his songs for fans to remix (this was one of the big reasons he split with his former record label), and even gave away his last album completely for free, which is the origin of the title of this site (it was posted on NIN's site by Trent with the description "this one's on me".) He's one of the most fan-engaging musicians out there, if not the most.
posted by DecemberBoy at 2:13 PM on March 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

The main reason he left his former label, by the way, is that he felt they were overcharging for Year Zero in other countries, and even told fans at a show in Australia to "steal and steal some more". He's been completely anti-industry for his whole career, even to his own detriment.
posted by DecemberBoy at 2:15 PM on March 5, 2010

Pope Guilty: You might be interested in this compilation release, then.

And yes, I miss that ARG a lot. Totally reality-fuck for the weeks it was going on. Perhaps what is happening in these photos is that Trent is finally working on the follow-up album, and we'll get another ARG.
posted by hippybear at 2:20 PM on March 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

This reminds me, more than anything, of the Grateful Dead's relationship with their fans and tapers, etc.
posted by Mister_A at 2:22 PM on March 5, 2010

Oh wow, thanks hippybear!
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:30 PM on March 5, 2010

hippybear: He said at the time that the album and ARG were just part of the project, and he was working on a script for a movie, etc. He's not done with it, for sure.
posted by DecemberBoy at 2:33 PM on March 5, 2010

Mister_A: "Remember when this used to be measured in hours?"

Or "feet" even?
posted by idiopath at 3:06 PM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

I would love to see a conversation (fistfight?) between Trent Reznor and Prince about this.
posted by mullingitover at 3:17 PM on March 5, 2010

Mister_A: "Over 200GB of footage was collected...

Remember when this used to be measured in hours?"

I wish it still was (or rather, it is, but I wish everyone still would), because this could be anything from to 55 hours of quite compressed h.264, to 16 hours of DV/HDV, to 4.5 hours of DVCPro, to 2 hours of RedCode Raw, to 15 minutes of 2k DPX files, or 3 minutes of 4k DPX.

So, yeah.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:34 PM on March 5, 2010 [3 favorites]

mullingitover: "I would love to see a conversation (fistfight?) between Trent Reznor and Prince about this."

Prince would win. Then serve pancakes.

But seriously, however true it might be that Reznor is only in a position to do this because of his earlier label support, at least he understands that this is his best strategy now.

You know how we read about the latest iron-fist idiocy of the RIAA and say "They don't get it" ? Reznor gets it.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:36 PM on March 5, 2010

I wish it still was (or rather, it is, but I wish everyone still would), because this could be anything from to 55 hours of quite compressed h.264, to 16 hours of DV/HDV, to 4.5 hours of DVCPro, to 2 hours of RedCode Raw, to 15 minutes of 2k DPX files, or 3 minutes of 4k DPX.

Considering how it was made, it probably was filmed in all of those.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:18 PM on March 5, 2010

doctor_negative: But, if you look at it as free advertising for your shows, it's a huge win and it cost NIN nothing.

Not such a big monetary win, then, considering that NiN had their final tour ("Nine Inch Nails Wave Goodbye") last year.

Thanks for the post, hippybear! It's a great registration of what looks like an epic show.
posted by LanTao at 11:32 AM on March 6, 2010

Not such a big monetary win, then, considering that NiN had their final tour ("Nine Inch Nails Wave Goodbye") last year.

I think that once Reznor released Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons license, which meant that it could be posted on torrent for download for free without repercussion, and then managed to gross $750K from sales of the limited edition collectors set of said album, not to mention the unlimited sales of the $75 set and the CD editions, plus all the Amazon MP3 sales of the album at, what? $5?... I think he realized that there were ways to make money off his music aside from strict legalistic control of the music he produces.
posted by hippybear at 1:47 PM on March 6, 2010