C/D--Nine Inch Nails

Trent is somewhat of a confused popist I think. For the Fragile, he seemed to try and apply some of his "industrial" ways to forms other then hard rock. The problem was, he took his persona and angst and gothitude instead of his phat synth beats.

A completely insightful comment. Trent is a frustrated popsmith trapped in a scowling industrial cyberpunk's bodyarmour. I, for one, would love it if he completely pulled the 180 he's been threatening and came out with an unapologetic pop record that completely dropped all the sci-fi/angst/bondage/goth shenanigans. Let his former protogee, Marilyn Manson, milk that particular cow dry while Trent could take on Timbaland and the Neptunes as THE inventive producer to be reckoned with.

I always get that feeling that he's still got this potential for a really incredible album, although I confess my hopes sorta wavered after the Fragile. It had the sound of someone falling out of touch with reality, which is always what brings down the Great Big Artists (unless they're out of touch to begin with, like Madonna).

And what the fuck is with the "halo #" thing? I never got that.

The halo thing is just numbering his releases. I think it's a savvy play to the hardcore among his fan base, like my freaky friends.

This particular drunk story mentioned up there some took place at Bethany College, like 20 miles north of Wheeling I think. I dunno, I'm from Steubenville OH, right across the river from Weirton WV, and Bethany was like a 30 minute drive south.

And while I'm not too excited over With Teeth, I am hyped up about the upcoming DFA remix. Woo!

Got out my copy of The Fragile the other day. Most of that album is really not good! And what drove me up the wall wasn't just lyrics, it was the way the songs were so calculated, structurally - so predictable - verse, chorus, verse, repeat, add sound layer, add sound layer, add sound layer, add singsong refrain, drop them all out, blast of everything at once, repeat.

Overall, I still like the Fragile a lot despite its flaws.

I find that this doesn't bother me on the really great tracks, however, notably throughout The Downward Spiral.

Dude, I've lived in the States for 3 years. [pats head]. Who knew?

that may have been a warning sign, I think.

I agree that Fixed was better than Broken but I large chunks of The Fragile were fantastic. Maybe I'm just very easy to entertain but "The Wretched", "The Fragile", "We're In This Together Now" and "Into The Void" rank up there among my favorite Trent songs.

Pretty Hate Machine is still amazingly innovative, even if its sound is dated at this point.

:::splutter:::;

WHAT? Ministry and Skinny Puppy might vociferously dispute that.

They’ve also played The Fragile a few times.

i'm seeing all these clips my friends are sharing from the show last night and really regret not going.

imo the back half of With Teeth is like a concentrated version of The Fragile without the bloat but this might be controversial

I forgot to mention, there was a guy in my row at the show who brought his grandma, I am still thinking about this as much as the show itself

Holy shit. Just got back from the show in Baltimore. Fucking fantastic.

xpost -- I mean...Trent turned 60 this year. Are you sure she wasn't the fan?

I love Reptile, but I did not expect that to be the heaviest goddamn song of the night. Friend who had pit tickets said the pit exploded on that one.

Glad we got Perfect Drug. Josh Freese destroyed the arena with that solo.

Played Somewhat Damaged in full, which was also mean as fuck. My favorite song on The Fragile tbh.

Awesome Boys Noize mixed version of Closer on the B Stage.

Head Like a Hole the only PHM song they played, finale before Hurt. Crowd erupted for it with a light show to match.

xxp she was like 70-80 years old at least I think, trust me I would not bat an eye at a 60 year old at the show

crowdsurfing Santa (in August) makes Trent laugh

https://www.tiktok.com/@nik64593/video/7543686425628200222

I’ve been enjoying that one! It’s even funnier
that he’s not rolling his eyes as a jaded long-term large concert guy and seems genuinely disrupted

it does seem like the santa kind of ran out of crowd and and ate shit as he dropped, which is also funny

I feel less terrible since the crowdsurfer got up and was fine, but I cracked up many years ago when a crowdsurfer ran into a guy in front of me, absolute unit of a man, and probably at least 6’3” was not into boosting anyone. The guy soaring over the crowd basically brick walled into this guy’s chest and dropped

Seeing NIN this weekend for the first time, pretty psyched! I'm going with my brother and sister-in-law, they're both much bigger fans than me, they've seen them many times. (This will actually be my SIL's second time seeing them this tour.)

my only previous time was twenty-five years ago on an afternoon slot at a festival, where the vibe was so off I bailed to a tin shed to re-see an act I’d already caught at their sideshow two days before

you’ve made a good choice imo

that same santa dude was also at the oasis show on monday.

xpost sic was that Big Day Out? i saw them at the Melb BDO that year

yah in Sydney, and it was Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros (sideshow in a 1200 cap venue) that I went to catch the encore of instead

I really wish I’d followed my gut and seen them in my early 20s; my days of shows like this are probably done

stfu and buy a pit ticket & get there in time to be on the barrier with yr back to the main stage imo

(lol I had to bring a second phone with the ticketmaster app just to get in, but then there was no 5G in the VIP entrance I got redirected to bcz of overcrowding, so I had to queue half an hour at a desk to have a gif generated and then get a url for it texted to another phone so I could get back in the main queue and get scanned, so I was on the side instead. take my advice as sincere.)

I don’t know where they were playing in your early 20s but this was approx. my sixth arena show ever

Full official video for this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnMyroAH0rg

The floor seats directly behind Stage B were pretty great, imo. Visibility to the main stage is hit or miss depending on how tall people in front of you are, but I was to the left of B about six rows back and the experience of everything on that stage was great.

There were people in their 40s/50s there with their kids scattered throughout and they were not the oldest there.

I was there last night and it was awesome. The visuals are pretty amazing - one in particular is likely to be appreciated if you're near the front because it looks like a whole bunch of life-size Trent Reznors are replicated many times and shown around the stage. (Looks like the trick was done via the layers of curtains, but from afar, it wasn't clear they were projections of Reznor until later - they initially looked like slivers of light.)

more than a few videos on my social media feeds of the Barclays show tonight and god I wish I was there

I was super impressed with the 3d looking visuals from my seat approx. 1 million miles away from the stage.

third NIN show i've seen and easily the best. the subtle rearrangements of the vast majority of the songs made them feel so new and alive to me. the dj set in the middle just about made me die and go to heaven

I admit the more the tour goes on and I hear reports like this the more I semi-regret missing it (I say semi because 1) I have seen them at least six times over the decades and 2) it was up against Blood Incantation, who I had never seen and really wanted to, and they put on a mighty fine show). But yesterday I did enjoy rocking my January 1991 vintage LA-only shirt from a short stint opening for a Jane's Addiction stand plus a standalone show that month -- the starpower was evident even then.

also i took my mom, she's 73 :))))

xpost, yeah, I've seen em three times over the years. Once I saw the ticket price I said my official stance was "I've seen em already" but I may grab night-of last-minute-bail tix for the L.A. show if they are a normal price. I still can't reconcile "everyone is unemployed right now" with "every show is $600 and sold out immediately" but here we are.

I def sprung for Future Ruins tickets though, so I'll get my Trent and Atticus fix this year

so other than Ivy, who’s already given her answer, for those who have seen them on this tour and isn’t their first time, how does this compare to past times you’ve seen them?

also was thrilled that we got a super funky dj-fucked version of "sin" last night, my goodness

may be conflating "best nin show i've seen" with "gayest nin show i've seen"

trent reznor saw the "she should be in the club" meme and thought it was about him

I was looking up some NIN trivia the other day and was a little agog that “March of the Pigs” made the top 10 on the Billboard dance chart. But I do remember a lot of “industrial dance nights” in that era, so I guess not that much of a stretch.

The remix on the single was in 4/4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJsMKy-r1Zo

I kept thinking of a tweet I saw a long time back about "the 10% of people who are at the sex club just for the music" when I saw the St. Paul show

so other than Ivy, who’s already given her answer, for those who have seen them on this tour and isn’t their first time, how does this compare to past times you’ve seen them?

better in every conceivable way compared to the first and only other time that I saw them, which was the with teeth tour iirc. loved the DS-heavy setlist, the tweaked arrangements generally sounded great, and they figured out a way to make a big stadium show visuals actually look cool, which couldn't have been easy. great show!

xxetcp is Trent Reznor gay

for me, specifically

The remix on the single was in 4/4

That would help for sure.

is Trent Reznor gay

― Murgatroid, Thursday, September 4, 2025 3:38 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i’ve never read an interview or anything about this but i’ve written more than a few posts on ILM about how the text of pretty hate machine is pretty much “damn i really want a guy to fuck me, sounds cool”

watching the visual elements of this show i wondered if trent had seen and become obsessed with the recent broadway run of andrew lloyd weber’s sunset boulevard

Trent getting into recent broadway shows? Must be working on finishing that EGOT collection

jukebox musicals are generally corny and bad but I would watch the shit out of a NIN jukebox musical

Year Zero is practically a musical soundtrack already

Was going to say.

trent absolutely has a musical in him - from our lips to god’s ears let’s make this happen

omg can u even imagine how awesome that wd be

So yeah, great show. That’s how you do an arena show. They sounded great and seemed to be having a blast, the setlist rocked, the lights and staging were simultaneously stripped down and grandiose — minimalist maximalism. (Opted to close my eyes a few times during the intense flashing.) Ending with Head Like a Hole and Hurt felt almost like the closing of a religious service.

yeah, only once did I have to shield my eyes from the flashing strobe lights, forgot which song it was during but yeah that was a bit too much, esp for the aforementioned granny in my row

loved how he kept jumping around from stage to stage, I really dig how it helped him unveil different intensities of performance. the solo piano opener led into a few songs with a band in the middle of the floor that were pretty good but just a kind of warm-up, then bam! he hits you at the end of the floor with a bigger stage, the soundsystem booming, the huge video screens and we're off. the mid-set remix break with Boys Noize was also fucking sick, especially Closer and the new song. didn't realize there would be no encore so the ending on Hurt was pretty dramatic and abrupt.