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| Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails @ the Bill Graham Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating)
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It's been an amazing past two nights of music at the
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium with the return of
Nine Inch Nails. The band has been playing select festival shows over the past couple of years and recently embarked on a limited US tour that's seen the band play several nights in smaller venues in each city they've hit. For us, that meant two nights at the Bill Graham this past Monday and Tuesday — the first of which sold out almost immediately when tickets went on sale earlier this year. The second date was added shortly after and felt at or near capacity last night. Trent Reznor's team of musicians include Robin Finck (guitar), Ilan Rubin (drums), Alessandro Cortini (keyboards/bass), and Atticus Ross (synths).
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| Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails @ the Bill Graham Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating)
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Looking back over the past two nights, the overall feel of each night was completely different primarily driven by the song selection of each setlist. On Monday, the band led off with the 24-year old "Mr. Self Destruct", a track from their second full length release,
The Downward Spiral, before delving even deeper with just as bombastic a song, "Last", from their 1992
Broken EP. Those two songs set the tone of the evening and before the night was over, we'd hear 3 other tracks from
Broken including "Help Me I'm In Hell", "Happiness in Slavery", and "Wish". Given the intensity of that album alone, you can understand what I mean when I say that Monday's show was a powerhouse featuring some of NIN's harder material. Don't get me wrong, there were moments that were more subdued scattered throughout the show, but overall a much more forceful night when compared to Tuesday. On Monday, the band played material that spanned eight different albums, two soundtracks (The Crow & Natural Born Killers), and performed a touching tribute to David Bowie which featured "I Can't Give Everything Away" and "Subterraneans." The slower Bowie songs coming towards the middle of the show gave everyone a short chance to take a breather and pay homage to not only a legendary artist, but one of Trent's influences and person who Trent credits helping him get sober. "Subterraneans" in particular sounded amazing in the live setting of the Civic Auditorium. The song bounced around the cavernous space and truly felt immersive, like the music was coming from all around me.
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| Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
After Monday's show, it was understandable that Tuesday required a bit of a slow-down. By no means do I mean to imply that is wasn't as good as the night before, it just simply had a different feel to it. I remember looking at my watch at 10:30 and was blown away that they had already played for 75 minutes. The show moved, but the intensity was lower compared to the night before. And for me, that was a great part about the Tuesday set as well... It was almost
completely different from the night before. Gone was the Bowie tribute sandwiched by NIN's heavier material, and in its place, was an even greater mix of material that spanned 11 individual albums, including one of my personal favorites, "The Perfect Drug" from the
Lost Highway soundtrack. Throughout the history of NIN, The Perfect Drug has historically been shunned by Trent and has never been performed live up until this tour. I'm not exactly sure why or how Trent's opinion of the song changed only recently, but I'm happy to say that it sounded great and I hope it becomes a staple of their live shows moving forward. Tuesday's encore consisted of a few other rare tracks that ended the evening on a reflective mood. Before starting the encore, Trent introduced the band before talking at length of how thankful he was for the fans who have supported them all these years, and how the next grouping of songs were tracks that got him through his darkest times. "All the Love in the World", "Even Deeper", and "And All That Could Have Been" are (I'd dare say) beautifully written songs and the complete opposite of NIN's 'industrial/metal' anchors like "Head Like a Hole" or "Closer". On both nights, the show closed with "Hurt", the track arguably made more famous by Johnny Cash, but still one of NIN's best.
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| Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails @ the Bill Graham Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating)
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Looking at just these two dates in San Francisco, the band performed 44 unique songs over the two nights, with only 4 songs that overlapped both nights -- those included "Piggy", "Wish", "Head Like a Hole", and the aforementioned "Hurt". I’d personally love to know how many songs the band has had to learn and rehearse to support all the dates on this tour! And if you’ve seen NIN in the past, you’ll know that the shows have always been highly choreographed affairs with impressive stage shows consisting of intricate layouts, visual effects, and lighting… All of which you can't -- or at least couldn't -- easily make changes to during the course of the tour -- especially when it comes to the song order or song choices from night to night. But Trent has always pushed the bounds of what's technically possible, both in his recorded music and the delivery of that music in a live setting, so this tour was another example of doing just that. Gone are the days of pre-programmed choreographed lights and video presentations -- the systems powering those rigs have clearly become more sophisticated, which has allowed the additional freedom in song choices from night to night. In fact, in addition to the typical lighting rigs hung from the rafters, a mobile lighting set-up was wheeled to different positions on the stage throughout the night, adding an element of change that shifted to augment the mood being driven by each of the songs. Both shows were an incredible display of the variety and diversity of Trent's music catalog, and the overall visual performance morphed across the music to ensure all of us were transported away from the reality of all that's going on in the world today. We had a chance to escape, and maybe even vent for a few hours each of these nights.
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| Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails @ the Bill Graham Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating)
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They're off to LA for a 6-night(!!) stay at the
Palladium to close out this tour and here's hoping they don't take too much time off before hitting the road again in the future!
You can find both night's setlists below and be sure to follow us across social for more photos, concert announcements, and more at:
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