Nine Inch Nails
Stubbs, May 25
Shouting Marianne Faithfull-by-way-of-
Kurt-Weill and sporting a look straight out of Cabaret, stark Boston duo the Dresden Dolls set the stage for Nine Inch Nails’ dramarama. The Dolls’ bleak rendition of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” lingered over Stubb’s packed-to-the-outhouses sell-out, and when Trent Reznor and his cohorts stepped onstage, the primal crush toward them began and stayed that way for exactly 90 minutes and not one minute more. Amid a bare set illuminated by (barely utilized) industrial-strength stadium lighting, the crown prince of alienation opened with the pulsing “All the Love in the World” from NIN’s new chart-topper, With Teeth. “March of the Pigs” came early in the set, delivered like a radio edit rather than one of Reznor’s showstoppers. Though he spat its signature line, “Doesn’t it make you feel … better?” with bite, it felt as if the song was sung solely to placate the black-garbed masses. (Hard not to giggle at uniformed police officers strolling through the crowd, unaware of the accompanying soundtrack.) And bearing in mind how far Billy Idol could be heard singing “Rebel Yell” during SXSW 05, Reznor’s hissing vocals on “Closer” echoed louder as he snarled “I wanna fuck you like an animal” than most of the earthshakers making up the balance of the set. The new material especially (“You Know What You Are?”) sounded menacing, though it was deeper catalog cuts like “Wish” that had the swaggering pierced in the crowd spitting all the lyrics. Reznor himself was afire, lean and clean, holding sway with guitar after guitar, and demonstrating his undeniable charisma on “Hand That Feeds” as fellow industrialist Paul Barker of Ministry/Revolting Cocks watched from the sidelines. At the end, Reznor slyly teased the audience with a verse from “You’re So Vain” before plummeting into his breakthrough hit, “Head Like a Hole.” The enduring image of Reznor’s finale was a twist even he couldn’t have imagined in the Nineties when he was shaking the foundations of the Frank Erwin Center: Instead of flaming lighters going up in a show of solidarity, this crowd held up its cell phones.
This article appears in June 3 • 2005.