Queen City Nerve’s motto has been the same since our start: If you think nothing is happening in Charlotte, you’re not trying. While we’ve always included a Lifeline in our print issue, here’s our online version to help give you weekly reasons to engage.
Nine Inch Nails
Tuesday, Feb. 10 • 8 p.m. • Spectrum Center • $65-$178
In 2024, Nine Inch Nails founder and frontman Trent Reznor voiced his disenchantment with the music industry, prompting fans to worry that he would put his band on hold. Instead, the legendary industrial outfit came roaring back last year with its Peel It Back tour, which now comes to Spectrum Center.
With bleak, nihilistic but popular albums like Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral, NIN brought industrial into the mainstream with its pulverizing beats and cathartic lyrics. Reznor has since branched out, composing film scores for movies including David Fincher’s Gone Girl. German-Iraqi electronic music producer-songwriter-DJ Boys Noise opens for Reznor and crew.
‘Primary Trust’
Feb. 12-22 • times vary • The Arts Factory at West End Studios • $20-$35
Three Bone Theatre resumes its first production since Lisa Miller took the helm as the company’s first full-time managing director. Written by Eboni Booth, Primary Trust was recognized with the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play follows Kenneth, a 38-year-old bookstore worker who spends his evenings sipping mai tais at the local tiki bar. When he’s suddenly laid off, Kenneth finally begins to face a world he’s long avoided — with transformative and even comical results.
“Eboni Booth’s portrait of one man’s loneliness and the danger of coping mechanisms will restore your faith in theater’s elemental storytelling powers,” wrote The Observer.
Snug Formal
Feb. 13 • 9 p.m. • Snug Harbor • $14-$17
Formal attire is required to attend this annual rock soiree, with a bill that certainly boasts high-class acts. On its debut album i put everything into this, Greensboro four-piece Fifth Floor combines spiky, chugging guitars, yearning vocals and arching choruses in pop-rock nuggets like “somehow.”
Nashville power-pop quartet The Dreaded Laramie crafts rampaging femmecore pop-and-glam rock gems like the galloping “Agency.” Charlotte’s Modern Moxie combines crunchy guitars, a dash of nostalgic Nancy Sinatra-style attitude, a soupcon of psych and singer-songwriter Madison Lucas’ sizzling charisma. Queen City legend ThatGuySmitty spins tunes along with musician, artist and Snug’s own Shiprocked! founder Scott Weaver.
Oddities & Curiosities Expo
Feb. 14-15 • 10 a.m.-5 p.m. • Charlotte Convention Center • $17 and up
Taxidermy and preserved animal specimens, horror and Halloween-inspired artwork, metaphysical accoutrements, handcrafted oddities, funeral collectibles and bones. These are just a few of the offbeat treasures you can acquire at the Oddities & Curiosities Expo.
Founded by Michelle and Tony Cozzaglio, the wonderfully weird and curated O&C experience is rooted in the co-founders’ background in the punk scene. Since its launch, the traveling expo has cultivated a welcoming community for alternative artists, collectors and curious individuals. Attendees can access their inner Morticia or Gomez Addams as they engage in taxidermy, insect pinning and wet specimen preservation classes, shop for arcane artifacts and find like-minded (dark) souls.
Lizzie No, Ryan Lockhart, Crow With No Mouth, Jordyn Zaino
Sunday, Feb. 15 • 8 p.m. • The Milestone • $12
The Milestone hosts an evening of dark folk with a scalpel sharp, take-no-shit edge. Hailing from NYC, Black revolutionary folk and rock artist Lizzie No crafts defiant, thought-provoking tunes like the crackling, eerie and hypnotic “Halfsies.” A former metal/hardcore artist, raspy voiced Ryan Lockhart conjures melodic, guitar-propelled hardscrabble country that keeps the rebellious punk fires burning.
With tunes like the cantering, soul revealing “(Only) Medicine,” Salisbury’s backcountry alt-folk trio Crow With No Mouth mixes somber moodiness with ramshackle hellraising. Inspired singer-songwriter Jordyn Zaino can rock out or rein it in, but always remains connected to her lyrical, emotionally raw roots.
