Friday, Feb 2, 1990
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Automatic
With Nine Inch Nails
- Date
- Friday, Feb 2, 1990
- Show time
- 8:00 PM
- Venue
- California Theatre
- City
- San Diego, CA
- Seating
- Center Orchestra
- Face value
- $19.50
- Promoter
- Avalon / Coke / 91X
- Sold by
- Ticketmaster
Nine Inch Nails opened, per John, and it is documented: setlist.fm has a Nine Inch Nails set at the California Theatre on this exact night, and they supported the Mary Chain across the Automatic tour. This was the Pretty Hate Machine era, eighteen months before Lollapalooza. John had seen the Mary Chain in this same room sixteen months earlier, opening for Iggy Pop.
What they played
- Blues From a Gun
1 songs, from setlist.fm. Contributed by whoever was standing there taking notes.
What Nine Inch Nails played
- Hate 1990 Intro
- Terrible Lie
- Sin
- The Only Time
- That's What I Get
- Get Down, Make Love Queen cover
- Ringfinger
- Down in It
- Head Like a Hole
9 songs, from setlist.fm.
The moment
Pretty Hate Machine was three months old and Nine Inch Nails were a support act — Trent Reznor hauling a synth-rock record nobody knew how to categorize through theaters on the Mary Chain's Automatic tour, his first real national run. Eighteen months later Lollapalooza's main stage made him a star; five years later he was the biggest dark-pop auteur in America. John caught the before: NIN as the opener you told people about afterward, under the Mary Chain's wall of feedback.
From the time
- Pretty Hate Machine
“The 1989 debut Trent Reznor recorded on stolen studio time — toured first as an opening act, including this run with the Jesus and Mary Chain.”
The stub
