Color me disappointed.

Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails are finishing up their Lights Over The Sky Tour, one of the most visually stunning and technically intracite stage shows ever produced. A technology company called Moment Factory (who has done work with  Cirque du Soleil) developed the technology to run the show out of a single “brain” computer that uses laser barriers to sense motion on the stage and allow transparent and LED screens to be interactive.

That looks something like this:

Skip ahead to 5:40 on the YouTube video to see Nine Inch Nails perform “Only.” The front screen is a semi transparent one that shows TV white noise. On the floor of the stage is a laser barrier running up and down marked by LED lights on the stage. When Trent Reznor breaches the laser barrier, the white noise “opens” to reveal Reznor and the band.

Some of the show lose it’s grandeur in a YouTube video, which is why Nine Inch Nails plan to shoot their tour with James Cameron’s 3D cameras for a 3D-theater concert film sounded so awesome.

But, it was not to be…

From NIN.com:

File this one under lost opportunities.

I’m very proud of the show we’ve put together for this tour and have been working hard the last few months to find a way to capture it. I had an amazing situation lined up that would have allowed me to film the show in 3D with James Cameron’s team for a theatrical release as well as DVD / BluRay, etc. We had an extra date added to the tour that we were going to give away all the tickets for and have a filming party / thank you show.

I made two critical mistakes. One was to approach a certain record company that owns some of the song rights about producing / funding. The second was to allow said company to fuck around as usual for months before saying um… no. We then achieved the impossible by finding alternate production / funding but the timetable is too rushed to get it filmed comfortably with the remaining time left on the tour. This tour and a lot of the personnel involved finish at the end of this leg, so we can’t push filming into Jan / Feb.

Deep breath…
This was an amazing tour and production - certainly the best thing I’ve ever been involved with and likely the final tour for NIN on this scale. Thank you to those who came out to see it and forgive me for having a Kanye West moment, but this was FOR SURE the best show of the year and any bullshit end-of-the-year poll you may read in the next few weeks that says otherwise simply has it wrong. Those of you who saw it know I’m right.

Weak.