NINE INCH NAILS BESIDE YOU IN TIME DVD INTERSCOPE, UNIVERSAL RELEASE: FEBRUARY 27, 2007 REVIEW: MARCH 5, 2007

I caught Trent Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails live at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden in the summer of 2005 and it was one of the best gigs in my entire life. I cried.

Enough about that.

The live show captured on this delicious DVD is from The North American Tour last year, with a Trent Reznor that has shaved his head (or at least cut his hair extremely short). The sound is excellent, the 5.1 mix too, and the song selection faultless. Actually, on some levels this is one of the best live DVD:s I have ever seen, capturing in minute detail and epic splendour the full multi media experience of a real NIN show. Some of the versions of the classic songs are actually even better than the originals – for example a lead-heavy "Burn" that almost makes me want to stand up in my sofa and jump up and down. Scary!

We also get "Closer", "Wish", "Terrible Lie", "March of the Pigs", "Something I Can Never Have" (in one of the best versions I have ever heard). And that’s just a few of the featured tunes.

Wow!

Even though we don’t get any information about which live shows from the tour are cut together to create an illusion of a single show – the editing is almost seamless. The "three guitars in the space of 30 seconds of the same song" cut and paste phenomenon that still irritates the hell out of me while I watch the "All That Could Have Been Live" DVD (which I still do, it’s excellent too) is gone.

Unfortunately, the extra material with a few more songs from the winter leg of the tour, a couple of videos and a few tour rehearsal takes doesn’t make the cut. That, and the fact that there already is one excellent live DVD with NIN only make this an essential buy if you are a devout fan, if you don’t already own "All That Could Have Been" or if you want the live tracks from "With Teeth".

KALLE MALMSTEDT