Nine Inch Nails: Alone with everybody

Perpetual maverick, eternal adolescent and ostensible genius Trent Reznor has spent 20 years ensuring that nearly all that the world knows about Nine Inch Nails comes from records and live performances. Even an arena show, like the August 27 performance at Izod Center, feels like an intimate visit to one of music's iconoclasts.

The show kicked off with the first few songs on The Slip, the free, uncharacteristically tossed-off sounding album that NIN released this year. Tracks like "Letting You" and "Discipline" are some of Reznor's least processed songs, and they unsurprisingly had a garage band edge that proved Reznor is still capable of surprises. But the show took off noticeably at the start of "March of the Pigs," and the 7/8 drum intro and monosyllabic verse had the crowd screaming and headbanging in seconds.



The rest of the show was rooted in Reznor's albums from his prolific past year, with '90s touchstone The Downward Spiral also getting considerable rotation. Along hits like "Closer" and the first-set closing "Head Like a Hole," fan favorites like the hugely underrated Fragile standout "The Big Come Down" and an explosive "Gave Up" from the Broken EP kept the audience on their feet (or off it, in parts of the mosh pit.) Even his lesser-known music, such as the sparse instrumentals from his two-CD set Ghosts, all feature the diligent songmanship and sense of melody that took songs like "Terrible Lie" and "The Hand that Feeds" onto rock radio, next to nothing else remotely industrial. Purists can scoff at Reznor's commercial success, but if KMFDM or Skinny Puppy wrote music this versatile and exciting, they would be selling out arenas too.

The best of his recent releases, the brave, multilayered and downright brilliant Year Zero, was serviced with show highlights like the pulsating "Vessel," the rousing "God Given" and the hypnotic "The Warning," all accompanied by video images on the Blue Man Group-like stage set that reflected the album's Orwellian themes. Hopefully history will rightfully remember Year Zero as one of Reznor's finest statements.



For a renowned studio perfectionist, Reznor also persistently works to create a memorable show. He is a mesmerizing performer, suggesting a composed everyman on the verge of blowing a fuse, and his band expertly replicates sounds created almost entirely by Reznor in the studio. Guitarist Robin Finck nailed every background vocal and guitar quirk while sporting rock star charisma, and should Reznor every settle on a lineup for Nine Inch Nails, Finck would be the most ideal first mate.

Encoring with some newer songs, Reznor politely thanked the crowd and his road crew before Finck strummed the opening chords to "Hurt." Despite Johnny Cash's rendition overtaking Reznor's as the definitive version a few years ago, Reznor and Finck performed the sparse, emotional ballad with the choked-up instability of the original, blaring the song's final three tones over the stunned crowd and seemingly wrapping the enchanting night. But Nine Inch Nails one-upped themselves by following "Hurt" with "In This Twilight," a positively gorgeous album track from Year Zero that offered bare optimism in the face of all plight. "Watch the sun, as it crawls across a final time...and the sky is filled with light, can you see it," reassured Reznor, addressing a nation on the edge and expressing faith in its survival.



One by one, Reznor's bandmates bowed and made their exit, until Reznor was alone at the piano. Watching him wave goodbye and walk off into the dark, I felt very lucky to be alive while this guy is making music.

British dance-rock openers openers Does it Offend You, Yeah? were entirely inoffensive.