Pretty awesome in general.

Before I begin, let me just say that finding this VHS set was borderline impossible. My parents bought it for me as a birthday present from someone who was selling it off amazon for, I think, $36 (not the site but someone who was selling it on the site. Even amazon doesn't carry this!). And their money didn't go to waste. I've been wanting this set for a while so the though that I was getting it in the first place thrilled me.

Closure video 1 is a collection of all of their videos up to the point this was released, including some bonus live material that was Eraser, another version of Wish, and Hurt without David Bowie. The way the whole thing is put together is pretty cool. The best part is that none of the videos are censored, either. The second VHS is a short documentary of NIN's '94-'98 Self-Destruct tour. The concert footage is Pinion, Terrible Lie, Piggy, Down In It, March of the Pigs, The Only Time, Wish, Hurt, and Something I Can Never Have. In between each song there is backstage footage and some short clips of them playing at Woodstock '95 and other venues. A lot of it is pretty funny, especially the part where Trent, Robin, Charlie, Jerome, Danny, and some of their crew and friends are seeing who can knock a cord phone (not sure if that's what it is but I don't know what else it could be) off a cord it's hanging by (Trent wins). Like And All That Could Have Been and Beside You In Time, the footage is taken from various concerts (especially on this one, since it's all taken from '94 to '98). The concert is great, as Trent shows off how maniacal of a showman he was back in his youthful days: trashing instruments, throwing his bandmates everywhere and sending them to the ER, etc. The songs are also played perfectly, with virtually no errors.

Now, in all fairness, it definitely has its share of flaws. The footage is grainy, sometime REALLY grainy, especially on Piggy, Hurt (with David Bowie), and on interview with Trent talking about his Woodstock performance. The rest is better, but not by a whole lot. Also, on And All That Could Have Been and Beside You In Time, the quick outfit changes are obvious, as they are on this one, but unlike the aforementioned DVDs, on Closure, sometimes the transition between scenes gets kind of awkward. For example, on Down In It, when the scene changes from Trent to Danny singing "Rain rain go away, come again some other day," it cuts into "Come again some other day" with a noticeable switch in the notes everyone is playing. This seems like a very foolish mistake if you ask me. Lastly, I wish there could have been more than 8 live songs (11 if you include Eraser, Wish and Hurt on the second video, even though the last 2 are already included on the concert part). I mean, there just could have been so much more....

Nonetheless, Closure is an great video set, and no NIN collection is complete without it. It falls just a little short of perfectly documenting the Self Destruct Tour, which is why I had to dock off 1 star, but that's still only a minor flaw. And as for the DVD version of Closure that Trent made of this. Don't bother waiting around for it. There are too many legal problems with his former manager (who, if you ask me, is just pissed that Trent beat him in court after he selfishly kept millions of dollars that rightfully belonged to Trent), so it won't happen. However, you can find most of the bonus material that was on the aforementioned unreleased DVD on Youtube, including the infamous Broken movie (a disgusting masterpiece, by the way).

So, yeah, just buy this and don't wait a second more for its release on DVD, which will never happen.

A must for Nine Inch Nails fans

Though, I wish Trent would reissue this piece on DVD and there are rumors he might, this is a great look at Nine Inch Nails' early years. One of the videos shows us the Self Destruct tour, which as seen on the video was a thriving, aggressive show with all the youth and vigor it could handle. This video was put out after The Downward Spiral so the concert includes every album or single up to that point. The other video contains every music video produced by the band up to that point. The videos include Head Like a Hole, Down In It (subject of a FBI investigation for one of the scenes in the video), Sin, Pinion, Wish, Help Me I'm in Hell, Happiness in Slavery (not for the faint of heart), Gave Up, March of the Pigs (Live), Closer, and Hurt (Live). Every video is the unedited version so the full effect of every video is seen. This collection does NOT include the imfamous Broken movie. It includes songs from the album, but NOT the actual movie that accompanied it. The videos for the songs from the album are separate pieces to the Broken movie.

DVD Review

Collection of NIN videos, most of them "over-the-top" as expected. A must have for NIN fans.