Trent Reznor Calls Dying Fan During Nine Inch Nails Show
Trent Reznor paused to video-chat with a terminally ill fan during a concert last weekend in Las Vegas, calling the man on FaceTime before Nine Inch Nails launched their encore with “In This Twilight.”
“You probably saw me on my phone when I walked out for the encore and were like, ‘What the fuck is he up to?'” Reznor said before he got in touch with Andrew Youssef, a Los Angeles photographer who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2011. Yousef has been chronicling his battle with cancer in a weekly column for OC Weekly, and over the summer he wrote a piece about seeing Nine Inch Nails headline this year’s Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco.
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Reznor happened to see the story and reached out to Youssef on Twitter, inviting him to a show in Los Angeles, as well as the band’s rehearsals; they even grabbed lunch together a few times. Back at the end of September, Youssef was given “weeks to months to live,” he wrote in a column reflecting on listening to songs including “In This Twilight.” “Throughout my diagnosis, the meaning of a lot of the songs I like has changed drastically. This particular song resonates with me during the lyrics ‘As the time is running out / Let me take away your doubt / We can find a better place / In this twilight.'”
Though Youssef was able to attend the band’s November 8th show in L.A., he was too ill to travel to Las Vegas. Instead, he chatted with Reznor from his hospital bed before Nine Inch Nails played the chilling version of “In This Twilight” shown above. (The song originally appeared on NIN’s 2007 album Year Zero.) “I’m speechless,” Youssef wrote afterward on Twitter.
In other Nine Inch Nails news, the group just announced a score of new European and U.K. dates for next spring behind their comeback record Hesitation Marks. NIN.com members will have exclusive access to tickets via pre-sale (though that’s already ended for some shows), while tickets for the general public will be available tomorrow for certain concerts, with the others going on sale in the coming days. You can check out a full list of dates and ticket info on the band’s website.