What a piquant second for 9 Inch Nails to be again on the highway enjoying their model of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans.”
On the Discussion board on Thursday, for the primary present of a closing two-night stand of the electronic-rock band’s Peel It Again area tour, singer Trent Reznor didn’t elaborate on the freshly resonant subtext in Bowie’s tune (one which Reznor remixed for the late Brit and, in its music video, performed a Travis Bickle-esque creep).
However you possibly can really feel the sold-out Discussion board roil with new unease at that squelching industrial tune, as Reznor muttered Bowie’s scabrous lyrics about “No one needs anyone … Johnny wants p— and cars … God is an American.”
At this level, who isn’t a bit of afraid of People? 9 Inch Nails thrive within the murk of base human intuition and tech-driven dread. Who higher to assist us limn out these emotions of disgust, rage and desolation proper now?
Now of their fourth decade as a gaggle, 9 Inch Nails — the duo of Reznor and producer/keyboardist Atticus Ross together with a intently held touring band — does two tough issues terribly properly.
For 15 years, Reznor and Ross have served as Hollywood’s eminent techno-intellectuals, with a pair of Oscar wins for his or her movie scores together with the brooding lashes of David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and the craving ambiance of Pixar’s “Soul.” They’ve an upcoming film-music pageant, Future Ruins, that would be the first of its form and caliber in Los Angeles.
1. Robin Finck of 9 Inch Nails. 2. Trent Reznor. 3. Followers react as 9 Inch Nails carry out at Kia Discussion board. (Hon Wing Chiu / For The Occasions)
However Thursday’s Discussion board present was a decadent reminder of simply how nasty and violent this band might be as properly.
Opening on the smaller, in-the-round B-stage, Reznor took a solo-piano run by way of “Right Where It Belongs,” step by step including Ross, bassist-keyboardist Alessandro Cortini and guitarist Robin Finck right into a squalling “Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now),” earlier than lastly introducing drummer Josh Freese on the calisthenic drum exercise of “Wish.”
Freese was a last-minute addition to the touring band, after the group unexpectedly swapped percussionists with Foo Fighters days earlier than Peel It Again kicked off. However Freese — an NIN veteran of the mid-2000s — has turn into a fan-favorite returning hero, bolstering this lineup with pure rocker muscle.
Again on the principle stage, they redlined by way of “March of the Pigs” and seethed with fuzzbox rot on “Reptile.” They veiled the stage in gauze on “Copy of A,” casting dozens of Reznor shadows whereas he strutted and howled a couple of despondent, depersonalized modernity.
A second move by way of the rave-ready B-stage gave a touch at what the band’s cryptically billed upcoming Coachella set may appear like. “Nine Inch Noize” — implying an ongoing collaboration with their opener and collaborator, the German membership music producer Boys Noize — took kind right here beneath a monolithic, blood-colored lightbox. Reznor, Ross and Boys Noize revved up a brand new single, “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” from the movie “Tron: Ares,” but additionally revamped the everlasting hit “Closer” and “Came Back Haunted” with an after-hours sizzle.
It’s inconceivable to think about a single as desperately sexual, as sacrilegiously sacred as “Closer” ever making it to the Scorching 100 at present. For the Gen Z followers fascinated by Nails’ gothic-erotic aesthetic, it felt extra transgressive than ever.
After slashed-up takes on “The Perfect Drug” and “The Hand That Feeds,” the band closed out the set with an opposing pair of songs that lined the total vary of what its viewers is probably going going by way of at present. How viscerally satisfying to scream “Head like a hole, black as your soul / I’d rather die than give you control” as American life appears to unravel with every passing hour.
However after all, the band closed on “Hurt.” Johnny Money recorded his canonical model at 70, a canopy now synonymous with a lion in winter beginning down the grave. Simply 10 years youthful at 60, Reznor carried out it Thursday with all of the tightly coiled emotion and intimate grandeur of the child who wrote it. American life is ache; 9 Inch Nails endures.
