Nine Inch Fails

by E. Christopher Clark | Thursday, September 11, 2008

Nine Inch Nails perform in front of a Blue Screen of Death

ORIGINAL PHOTO: NIN The Great BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH by Amy Randazzo, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA; CAPTION: Unknown

When my friend John Herman forwarded me this image this morning, I was initially skeptical that it was for real. It was funny, regardless of whether it was real or not, but I did find myself obsessing over whether or not this was a Photoshop job.

Apparently not! Digg user ThinkIcouldburn points out, on the Digg thread for this image, that the Blue Screen of Death actually did make an appearance during performances of “The Great Destroyer” on the most recent NIN tour. I don’t remember that happening during my concert experience, but there is a YouTube video that proves it. If you skip ahead to 5:27 into the video, you can catch a brief glimpse of the BSOD.

That’s just one more reason that Trent Reznor rules, in my opinion. In the middle of one of the craziest, most hard-edged songs of the set, he throws in something that ridiculously funny? Awesome, says I. Just plain awesome.

UPDATE: On Friday, August 12, I figured out who took the photo and added appropriate attribution above.