Nine Inch Nails sends fans to downward spiraled drainpipe

On Monday night, I trespassed in Griffith Park, ran from men with flashlights and retrieved a valuable envelope hidden inside a drainpipe.

No, I’m not a secret agent. Just a Nine Inch Nails fan.

To kick off the band’s upcoming tour, they are hosting an exclusive concert in Los Angeles on July 19. Spots on the guest list go to the craziest fans, and I’m on it.

The band posted a file to its website with concert tour locations a couple weeks ago that visitors could download and open in the Google Earth software. Last Friday, a mysterious place marker appeared on the map, labeled “under the rock,” that pointed to a location in Burbank. Beneath that rock was an envelope giving the lucky discoverers entree to the show.

That event kicked off a viral campaign that puts fans in treasure-hunt scenarios, but with the pressure-cooker timing of an episode of “24.” Trent Reznor and Co. have a reputation for these unusual stunts. The band launched an alternate reality game in 2007 for its “Year Zero” album. That adventure sent fans digging through a digital trail of cryptic websites, calling phone numbers and analyzing digital files found on memory sticks in concert venue bathrooms.

Reznor, a Los Angeles resident, has long given special treatment to fans in his home city. He arranged a secret show in April of last year for local fan club members, who were contacted by cellphone and told to meet in Echo Park.

Message boards were buzzing all weekend about the Friday event, as local NIN-heads waited for the second concert ticket treasure hunt. That time came around 7 p.m. Monday when the next marker, titled “in the drainpipe,” appeared.

My brother TJ, a 33-year-old hard-core fan who has followed the band across continents to attend shows, was one of the first to see it. “We’ve got to go,” he shouted as I sat bewildered on the couch. “We’ve got to go right now!”

As he drove down winding back roads, I kept asking why he was breathing so heavily, why he was yelling and why he was driving almost double the speed limit. He told me to shut up and memorize the map. You know how big brothers can be.

When we pulled up to a side entrance at the park, we were greeted by a locked gate and a parked minivan. A sticker adorned the car’s rear window that read “NIN.” We were at the right place.

TJ veered his car onto the curb, jumped out and started running. As I jogged behind him, I began to understand why my brother has long been obsessed with the industrial rock group. Reznor’s constant efforts to provide a surreal fan experience make it easy to get pulled in.

As we neared a split in the road, a man shined his flashlight in our faces. “We found it,” he said. But we knew the prize wasn’t where they were walking from. We ran past the wannabe saboteurs, and as I began recognizing areas from the satellite images, I felt a burst of adrenaline. I sprinted past TJ and stopped at the spot I had remembered, sweating and gasping for air.

He jumped in the ditch, and using his cellphone as a makeshift flashlight, he reached into the drain.

Jackpot!

As we jumped up and down, celebrating our victory, it was obvious that Reznor had accomplished his goal. Those feelings of excitement and anxiety are the same emotions he aims to put across in his music. And that could explain why fans have been so overwhelmingly receptive to such a bizarre spin on one of the oldest forms of music promotion — a ticket giveaway.

– Mark Milian

Photo of Reznor by Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times; photo of TJ’s jackpot moment by Mark Millian

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