The last time Nine Inch Nails visited London it was to play an intimate Reading warm up gig at the Scala in Kings Cross, leaving a few lucky fans battered and bruised but at the same time reminding everyone that when stripped down to it’s raw core a NIN gig can be one of the most brutally intense experiences a human being can receive. Since then the band has toured North America with the appropriately name ‘Tension’ tour that offered spectacle of the highest caliber with its elaborate production but more interesting saw Trent Reznor upgrade NIN to an eight piece band with notable additions such as bass giant Pino Palladino and The Rolling Stone’s live backing singer Lisa Fischer.
Yet at the start of 2014 Reznor seemed to take a complete u-turn on the critical acclaimed Tension, stripping back the high concept stage show and reducing the band to a four piece to shift the focus back to aggression of earlier albums and reintroduce some of the electronic elements of the band’s underrated fifth studio record Year Zero that had been lost in recent tours. So one prominent question for ticket holders was what could we expect of this current leg of the tour? Was it going to be the slick and state of the art stage show of last year’s North American tour or a sonically violent and guitar driven setlist similar to those seen at this year’s South American Lollapalooza festivals and the joint headline tour with Queens of the Stone Age in Australian and New Zealand. To answer simply the O2 Arena gig was a dose of both.
Kicking off the two hour set with the odd choice of Year Zero’s ‘Me, I’m Not’ Reznor’s intentions seem to point towards a more atmospheric set allowing the crowd to start off soaking up the noise rather than the traditional smack in the face. But when it was followed up by last year’s danceable and excellent single Copy of A, the crowd makes its presence known by beginning to jump, dance and mosh and then things get loud. Like really loud.
But while this tour was originally meant to promote last year’s Hesitation Marks album release, NIN’s latest album only gets a few songs on the setlist. Possibly due to the reduced number of band members or maybe because Reznor is already moving onto writing the next record, we will never know. That said Disappointed comes with a visually lush backdrop that climaxes with the band appearing to be performing within a rotating 3D cube and Find My Way offers a mellow and emotive couple of minutes signaling the halfway point.
The album that does seem to be cornerstone of the night’s set is the 1994 fan favourite The Downward Spiral and with good reason, not only is it arguably the definitive NIN record but also just recently passed its landmark 20th anniversary. ‘March Of The Pigs’, ‘Piggy’, ‘The Becoming’, ’Closer’, ‘Eraser’ and ‘Hurt’ are the choice cuts and they all sound just as sharp as they day the were written.
Trent Reznor’s stage banter, as usual, is minimal with only the occasional thank you between songs but the NIN front man and his merry men make up for it with their skills as musicans. Instruments are constantly interchanged and swapped back and forth with each member switching between keyboards, guitars, drums and various synths, even a sitar made a cameo at one part.
As the concert continues the stage effortlessly changes shape with an HD screen becoming a video backdrop and lighting physically morphing shape and colour making the gig a very visceral presentation of Reznor’s music. Suggesting that while Nine Inch Nails live edge may have become less serrated in recent years it is definitely more surgical showcasing a mix of technological precision and one man’s obsession to consistently deliver such a memorable live show. The stage production simulates everything from the moon rising above the band to them playing within thunderstorms, wasp hives and digital static provided by creative director Rob Sheridan and The Moment Factory.
However concluding the main set with the barrage of Wish, The Hand That Feeds and Head Like A Hole predictably sends the crowd batshit crazy and when the NIN banner finally reveals itself through a wall of distortion and an onslaught of strobe lighting at the close of the main set the crowd is faithfully rewarded with the knowledge that Trent Reznor’s decision to revive Nine Inch Nails wasn’t a simple cash in and the band still offers one of the most unique and impressive live music experiences a concert goer can get.
Yet after all is said and done the best is saved till last. While Hurt might have been immortalized by Johnny Cash, it really does belong to Reznor. Not only because the man will poor whatever emotion he has left into the live rendition but what strikes harder is that after screaming and bouncing about for a couple of hours the song has the ability to reduce the crowd to a silence in which you could hear a pin drop in a place as big as the O2. Despite the wrist-cutting anthem being written when Reznor was at his lowest the set closer leaves the audience hopeful that this isn’t that last we will see of Nine Inch Nails but if it is the final time they grace our shores, there couldn’t of been a more fitting swan song for them to bow out to.
JF
Nine Inch Nails Played;
(Intro). The Downward Spiral / The New Flesh
1. Me, I’m Not
2. Copy of A
3. 1,000,000
4. March of the Pigs
5. Piggy
6. The Frail
7. The Wretched
8. The Becoming
9. Gave Up
10. Sanctified
11. Closer
12. Find My Way
13. Disappointed
14. Came Back Haunted
15. The Great Destroyer
16. Eraser
17. Wish
18. The Hand That Feeds
19. Head Like A Hole
Encore:
20. The Day The World Went Away
21. Hurt
The Sound Locker 