NIN Live: 1989

June, 26, 1990, Dallas, TX, The Video Bar

Setlist
Intro
Terrible Lie
Sin
Something I Can Never Have
Sanctified
That's What I Get
Suck
The Only Time
Get Down Make Love
Down In It
Head Like a Hole

Info About the In-House Recording Equipment

Via Ron Stanley (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8zhJJzl3LV8CP7n_MBb5fg)

Facts about this concert and technical specs of the video:

The Video Bar began playing tracks from “Pretty Hate Machine” from a cassette that was acquired at the new music seminar in June 1989 in New York City. Soon to follow were the promotional music videos from TVT records that made Nine Inch Nails a staple of the club. The heavy airplay at the popular nightclub and subsequent Airplay by local radio station KDGE The Edge broke Nine Inch Nails in a big way and the Dallas Fort Worth market.On the second leg of the Nine Inch Nails tour in 1990, The Video Bar was able to get an inside track on booking the show because of the early support. Nine Inch Nails played Dallas once before, opening up for Love and Rockets at the Arcadia Theater. The venue was way above capacity for the show and the air-conditioning could not keep up in the hot Texas summer causing it to be very uncomfortable inside with temperatures in the 90s. The opening act was a local industrial favorite called Lesson Seven. The band was made up of Wynne Martin, Scott Crow and David Starfire. The members of Lesson Seven can be seen onstage with Nine Inch Nails at the end of Head Like A Hole.

TECH SPECS—
The handheld camera downstage was a Sony DXC-3000 3CCD ENG camera connected to the house video system via RG-59 cable for live I-Mag and recording on a Sony VO-5850 ¾” U-Matic recorder. The fixed camera was a Canon E80 camcorder connected to the house video system with RG-59 and reordered on a Panasonic PV-A860 portable Hi-Fi VHS recorder with a soundboard audio feed. The video was edited using by using 2 SONY VO-5800 decks each with one of the camera feeds synchronized with a Sony RM-440 editing control unit. Each of the playback decks was connected to a Panasonic WJ-AVE5 digital video mixer with its output connected to a 3rd VO-5800 recorder with the audio feed directly from the Hi-Fi camera audio deck.Once the two decks were synchronized and playing, the show was mixed live with the digital video mixer doing dissolves and picture in picture.

DISTRIBUTION-
Produced in 1993 after the demise of The Video Bar, about 25 original VHS tapes were made from the master and sold to Bills Records in Richardson Texas. This was the only release from the original tapes, and all versions seen today are from that first handful of VHS copies, including the CD that is out there of this show.

Known Recordings

Source 1: Audio - PRO/Silver CD (Soundboard - "Hammer Hard")
Taper: E-Ron Productions/Home Records
Time: 51 minutes
Rating: 5 out of 5
Hear a Sample: Head Like a Hole, 2 minutes
Download the Full Show: .zip file FLAC, 294.4 MB
Added to Archive: January 31st, 2010
Comments:
This is the only soundboard available from 1990 and notably the earliest soundboard recording of NIN. This is from the silver CD's "Hammer Hard." There is some hiss in the recording. I am guessing because this audio source is ripped from the Pro-Shot video that they did this night as well. I bet if you got this from the actual DAT/Cassette soundboard master it will sound flawless. Another note is that many list this as being the Detroit, St. Andrews Hall show in July of 1990. This is not true and its mislabeled. But nonetheless this is an essential tape to own if you are a NIN fan. Highlighted on RITC's NIN Recording of the Week.

Source 2a: Video - PRO (Multicam)
Taper: Video Bar
Time: 50 minutes
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Download the Full Show: .zip file MP4 -720p, 3.09 GB
Comments:
Back in 2018, The Master Tape Network released the "new" master tape transfer of this tape. It was upscaled to 720p as well as to 60fps. I reached out to the MTN (it hasn't been updated in a handful of years) for a copy of it. They wanted money, but they'd throw this in if I bought a few other tapes from them. Thinking I would get the raw trasfner of it. I just received the YouTube rip of it. Very disappointed. It is great to know that the master tape exists somewhere. This definitely is the better version of the two.
Screenshots:

Source 2b: Video - PRO (Multicam)
Taper: E-Ron Productions
Time: 51 minutes
Rating: 3 out of 5
Download the Full Show: .zip file DVD NTSC, 3.66 GB
Comments:
This is the video that goes along with the soundboard audio. It clearly states at the beginning of the video that it was recorded in Dallas at the video bar. It was a E-Ron production (maybe someone knows who this is)? The video is somewhat grainy and it is sometimes hard to see the band members because of the high generation this tape must be. There is a picture in picture screen at the bottom and there is a lot of mixing shots together.

If you're in to how this tape came about (thanks to user on DIME): "The Video Bar was set up with a basic camera rig, so that they could show the acts on close-circuit TV and so that some of the footage could be used on their cable access show, VideoBah Television. This show happened shortly before the club closed, and the reason Trent mentions it being so hot is because the air-conditioning unit had been stolen off the roof. I think it was over 100 degrees inside, I know that I was so exhausted by the heat that I could barely stand for the show once NIN came on (after one of their notoriously long set-ups). The story I heard about how the tape got circulated was this: Shortly after the club closed, one of the people who was part of the staff sold off some of the masters of shows there, including this set. The show was duped off (very professionally) and sold in your typical notorious mom and pop record stores in the DFW area, where it then leaked to a wider audience."
Screenshots: