Nine Inch Nails

Hollywood Bowl - October 1, 2005

Live Review by Adam McKibbin

You’d never guess it from his music, but life hasn’t been easy for Trent Reznor.  He has gone through well-documented struggles with celebrity and addiction and, more recently, has had a bitter (and public) dispute with an old manager over millions of old dollars, canceled shows on the With Teeth tour due to drummer Jerome Dillon’s health problems, and played in front of at least one audience (Sacramento) that he deemed among the least appreciative of his career.  How would he fare, then, in the mecca of celebrity and what-have-you-done-for-me-latelies? 

Just the mere fact of the performance was a triumph of sorts, coming on the heels of those canceled dates and featuring a fiercely inspired reappearance by Dillon (who, it has now been announced, has left the tour).  Sporting a Henry Rollins look—all buffed-up arms and buzz-cut hair—Reznor was clearly not about to just lurch through the motions.  Whether playing songs from With Teeth or Pretty Hate Machine, Reznor & Co. tore into them like a band that still felt connected to the material, still felt excited about the material.  There was no sense of, “Well, we’d better trot out ‘Closer’ and ‘Head Like A Hole’ somewhere in the set.”  Of course, this is at least in part due to Reznor’s frequent and lengthy hibernations; he isn’t the sort who’s playing those old chestnuts 200 times every year.  It may also be partially due to Reznor’s stagnation—his catalog doesn’t give much evidence of evolution, be it fresh worldviews or simply “getting over it.”  For a man who has liberated or at least soothed so many disaffected listeners from the pangs of alienation and isolation, he seems cruelly and continually consigned to playing Prometheus—or maybe that’s just the way he wants it (or wants it to appear).  Whatever the case, there is a disconnect between the iconic songwriter up on stage, sweating and screaming about insects and feelings, and the cavorting CC Deville antics of his guitarist or the communal handclapping and general euphoria of the audience.

Although he titillated millions with his f-bombs and God-baiting, Reznor earned the “genius” tag for his music, not his lyrics.  Those tunes have held up surprisingly well, especially for anyone who hasn’t dusted off The Downward Spiral in a while.  The industrial menace is a welcome sound in the current climate of cheeky/dancey retro-rock.  Nine Inch Nails put on a rock show, and the lighting design was ambitious and kept even the nosebleeds feeling close to the action.  Projection screens were used to enhance the more restrained midsection of the set, featuring a pair of tracks from With Teeth over creepy video montages (bugs crawling, Bushes dancing).  Hell, even after years of overplay, “Closer” and “Hurt” still provoked emotional murmurings of, “God, I love that song.”  Present tense, not past.