Nine Inch Nails at the O2 Arena
Nine Inch Nails are the kind of band that never over-promise – and never, under any circumstances, under-perform. In fact, the opposite is true: Trent Reznor and co deliver a phenomenal show, full of drama, at London’s O2 Arena for the third date of their Peel It Back tour – their first in three years.
On a small stage in the middle of the room sits the singer, quietly plucking out the opening notes of Right Where It Belongs. The crowd’s roar when the curtains first lift quickly gives way to reverent silence – every one of the 20,000 in attendance holding their breath as he closes the song with the final verses of Something Damaged. Atticus Ross and Alessandro Cortini then join him on the platform for an acoustic rendition of Ruiner and Piggy, kicking the energy back up and getting the audience’s blood pumping.
As the action moves to the main stage, Wish stirs the crowd into a frenzy, and by the time March of the Pigs hits, the night’s first crowdsurfers are already launching into the air. Despite performing within a square of sheer curtains – which double as projector screens – the band’s raw energy radiates in waves, reaching all the way to the back of the room.
The full scope of the show’s impressive production – combining a dazzling light show with layered projections – unfolds on the main stage, but suddenly skitters into a deafening, confusing silence when issues with Reznor’s microphone force guitarist Robin Finck to pick up the vocals during Reptile. “We have the world’s most complicated light show and a fucking mic cable takes us out,” the frontman tells the crowd.
Ross and Reznor return to the smaller stage, this time joined by collaborator Boys Noize. Together, they deliver The Warning – a track from Year Zero getting its first live play since 2014 – followed by Only, from 2005’s With Teeth, which surprisingly makes its live debut.
But as tech issues persist into the show’s final act, NIN race through Heresy, Mr Self Destruct and Closer, before seemingly losing momentum – the spell cast in the first half now broken. A half-hearted cover of David Bowie’s I’m Afraid of Americans follows, then a suitably, deliciously pissed-off Perfect Drug, as the singer sends microphones – and later his guitar – flying across the stage at the crescendo of Head Like a Hole.
When Reznor, his voice as clear as ever, steps up to close the show with Hurt, the room reverts to pin-drop silence. All tech issues fade away as the song – in all its poignant loneliness – becomes a uniting, grounding force, drawing the crowd into a cathartic sing-along before the curtains fall.
A band’s true power as a live act is often measured by showmanship and bombastic numbers – but Nine Inch Nails prove it’s really about transcending the obstacles, and delivering something great in spite of them. And they do it in spades.
Antigoni Pitta
Photos: John Crawford, Coen Rees, Edmund Fraser
For further information and future events visit Nine Inch Nails’s website here.
Watch the video for Closer here:
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