Nine Inch Nails, September 6 at the Forum

Nine Inch Nails has been a cornerstone of most of my adult life. The music of Trent Reznor has been the soundtrack to many of my adventures and the strength and peace I got from their albums, especially Broken, got me through college. Listening to that music today, it still stands up technically but the rage can seem a little silly (but a lot less silly than the alt-rock/nu-metal dreck that it helped spawn). Luckily, Trent Reznor has grown up with the rest of us and the music he makes nowadays has evolved from rage pointed inward to a focused concentration on targets like politicians, particularly bad ex-girlfriends, George W. Bush, and, as usual, God. The shows have also evolved, though they still involve Reznor trashing instruments, but these days he seems to have better aim at where he throws them. This stage destruction seems a little overdone these days – like, what does he have to be angry about (except for having to play "Closer" again)? -- but maybe it even seemed a little childish back in the day and we related to it so much that we thought it's what we would have done if positions were changed. Since I had to sacrifice NIN for Kanye at Lollapalooza (hey, I wouldn’t go to see Kanye at his own show but I would for NIN), I committed myself to getting tickets for the Forum show but I don’t know why I would have done otherwise, even if I had seen them over the summer. Brian took my extra ticket and we took our time getting there (read: we got lost from Santa Monica to Inglewood). Opening the show with new material, Reznor and company powered through a half-hour set with a full stage, surging through strong tracks from The Slip, along with crowd-favorites "March of the Pigs" and "Closer," the latter being as forced and listless as Tom Petty playing "Freefallin'" for the 13,485th time. The band then played in front of a screen that came down to divide the stage to just a tiny strip to play some slower numbers then played behind the screen some tracks from Ghosts I-IV, which the crowd was patient for, though Reznor was smart enough to put "Piggy" in the middle just to keep them going. Not that they would have revolted because of the instrumental songs -- the mass of goths would follow Reznor to Hell even if he was playing the Nickelback catalog. Also notable was the run-through of "God Given", which sounded more powerful than the album version; I wish it always sounded as good when I play Year Zero. And of course he can wait an hour and a half into the show to even acknowledge the crowd by speaking to them – they’re all self-abusive. They eat that shit up. The show was almost stolen by the stage set-up: a huge screen the width of the stage with projections in front of the band, then another, bigger screen behind them, with various lights and effects between. During "Only," the screen in front of the band was filled with static until Reznor leaned forward to sing and a hole opened and followed him around. For “The Hand that Feeds,” the screen behind displayed a huge picture of Bush that slowly morphed into one of John McCain, which wasn’t terribly clever, but the clarity of the images was remarkable. Reznor has traded paying for broken instruments for a stage set-up so he may not be touring with the same thing for the rest of his life but hopefully a DVD release will show how it was, though it will only capture a fraction of the majesty and innovation shown on a TV screen. Reznor has broken the cycle of record-release-tour-repeat and he's free to do whatever in the world he likes now. No doubt he will continue touring but how he could top this show, as well as continue paying for it all, is its own question. We missed openers Deerhunter, who I became a fan of later, but they're not an extraordinary live band, and probably in the wrong place playing such a big venue, so it was just as well.

Nine Inch Nails' set-list:
"999,999"
"1,000,000"
"Letting You"
"Discipline"
"March of the Pigs"
"Head Down"
"The Frail"
"Closer"
"Gave Up"
"The Warning"
"Vessel"
"5 Ghosts I"
"17 Ghosts II"
"19 Ghosts III"
"Piggy"
"The Greater Good"
"Pinion"
"Wish"
"Terrible Lie"
"Survivalism"
"The Big Come Down"
"31 Ghosts IV"
"Only"
"The Hand That Feeds"
"Head Like a Hole"

"Echoplex"
"Reptile"
"God Given"
"Hurt"
"In This Twilight"