Terence Rushin
Audio By Carbonatix
On Tuesday night, from deep within a cloud of smoke so dense it hung like a heavy shroud, Trent Reznor howled.
The song in question — the pulsing, seething Nine Inch Nails classic “Closer,” with its immortal chorus of “I wanna fuck you like an animal,” as abrasive now as it was upon release three decades ago — had the near-capacity crowd inside the American Airlines Center writhing and shouting in blissful abandon.
Indeed, time has not diminished the visceral quality of Nine Inch Nails’ industrial rock music. If anything, the wider world has, regrettably, caught up to the now 60-year-old Reznor’s long-held views of humanity’s worst impulses. The distillation of dread, paranoia and self-loathing animating so much of his Grammy-winning catalog feels less like projection and more like reflection.
Tuesday’s dazzling performance was an encore of sorts for Reznor and his four bandmates — keyboardist Atticus Ross, bassist Stu Brooks, guitarist Robin Finck and drummer Josh Freese — who brought the Peel It Back Tour to Fort Worth last September. The Dallas gig marked Nine Inch Nails’ first appearance in Dallas proper in 12 years, and its return to a venue it had not headlined in nearly two decades.
Fresh from a Grammy win for best rock song (“As Alive As You Need Me to Be,” which turned up on Tuesday’s set list), Reznor deftly marshaled a pair of stages over the course of 100 minutes, moving from intimacy to bombast and back again.
Opening on the satellite stage with a solo rendition of the 2022 single “(You Made It Feel Like) Home,” Reznor conjured a sense of tender melancholy — a texture you might not immediately associate with his music — which gradually darkened into “Ruiner,” a searing deep cut from 1994’s sophomore effort The Downward Spiral. The transition collapsed the distance between Reznor’s early, angry work and his evolution into an Academy Award-winning composer for film and television. The discernible throughline from his controversy-stoking breakthrough to status as an elder statesman of alternative music is Reznor’s willingness to push the boundaries.
On the satellite stage late in the set, Reznor, standing alongside Ross and the show’s supporting act, Alexander Ridha (better known by his stage name, Boys Noize), evinced a willingness to mess with the hits — “Closer,” in particular, transformed the claustrophobia of the satellite stage, emitting the roiling fog into a discotheque from hell.
The band was electrifying throughout, as Freese kept the punishing rhythms on point. The triphammer fury of “March of the Pigs,” in particular, was astonishing, as Finck and Brooks augmented Ross and Reznor’s interplay of guitar, synth and keys. Age hasn’t dulled Reznor’s vocals, pinched and pointed as ever, and the exultant catharsis of “Copy of A,” “Gave Up” and particularly the closing stretch, larded with triumphs like “The Perfect Drug,” “I’m Afraid of Americans,” “The Hand That Feeds” and “Head Like a Hole,” proved exhilarating.
A precisely calibrated assault on the senses, delivered from behind scrims projecting chaotic live video feeds or impenetrable thickets of fog and strobe lighting, Nine Inch Nails seemed to take as much from the impassioned audience as it gave. “We really fucking appreciate you,” Reznor said near the night’s conclusion. The cumulative sensation felt like an embodiment of a lyric Reznor sang with particular urgency Tuesday night: “Without you, everything falls apart.”
In a performance prior to the Dallas stop, Reznor made mention that he’s unsure if the band will continue touring beyond this current run. If so, Nine Inch Nails is leaving at the top of its game, a peerless purveyor of punishing beauty — something no amount of haze can obscure.
