Nine Inch Nails live performances
Encyclopedia
Nine Inch Nails
, an industrial rock
band fronted by Trent Reznor
, did various live performances throughout the world, including tours in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Japan, and China. While Reznor controls the creative and musical direction of Nine Inch Nails in-studio, the touring band performs different arrangements of the songs in live settings. In addition to regular concerts, the band has performed in both supporting and headlining roles at festivals such as Woodstock '94
, Lollapalooza
1991 and 2008, as well as many other one-off performances including the MTV Video Music Awards
. There are 938 gigs of the band overall, when counted.
Nine Inch Nails' live performances contrast with its in-studio counterpart.
Reznor writes and performs nearly all Nine Inch Nails studio material, with occasional instrumental and vocal contributions from others artists. However, Reznor has typically assembled groups of backing musicians to interpret songs for tours and other live performances. Keyboardist Alessandro Cortini
said that "if you see the show and you're used to the CDs it's pretty clear that the studio entity is different from the live entity".
The only constant member of the live band is Reznor, who cites the long periods of time between major tours as one reason for the ever-changing live lineup. Live Nine Inch Nails performances are typically accompanied by lighting, stage, and video projection effects. Since 1999, the visual design components of live shows have been curated by Reznor with Rob Sheridan
. Three tours have been chronicled on live albums and tour documentaries.
Critical and commercial response to Nine Inch Nails live performances has generally been positive. Critics have pointed to the concerts' aggressive on-stage dynamic and visual designs as high points. Reznor decided in 2008 to cease touring with the band after a 2009 farewell tour.
band Skinny Puppy
on tour. The three-piece band consisted of Reznor on guitars and lead vocals, Ron Musarra on drums, and Chris Vrenna on keyboards. The band was poorly received, however, and they were asked to leave the tour after 10 dates. After the Skinny Puppy tour the band was rearranged and expanded to include a fourth member; Vrenna was moved to drums, Nick Rushe and later David Hymes contributed on keyboards, while Richard Patrick
was added as guitarist.
Nine Inch Nails toured North America as an opening act for The Jesus and Mary Chain
in 1990, and later for Peter Murphy
. During these tours, Reznor began to smash equipment while on stage, and Rockbeat interviewer Mike Gitter attributed the band's early success to this aggressive attitude. In 1991, the band undertook a world tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival, where, according to biographer Martin Huxley, they "stole the show". Nine Inch Nails was then invited to open for Guns N' Roses on their European Tour, though they were reportedly poorly received yet again. Before the Lollapalooza date, Chris Vrenna left the band due to a fall out with Reznor, and was replaced for the remainder of the tour by drummer Jeff Ward
. Vrenna would rejoin the band for the Self-Destruct tour in 1994. At the conclusion of the Pretty Hate Machine tour, Richard Patrick left the group to form his own band, Filter
.
, the live band embarked on the Self-Destruct tour in support of the album. Vrenna and Woolley returned on drums and keyboards respectively. Robin Finck
replaced Patrick on guitar, while bassist Danny Lohner
was added to the line-up. The tour included a mud-drenched performance at Woodstock '94
, which was broadcast on Pay-per-view
and seen in as many as 24 million homes. Nine Inch Nails received considerable mainstream success thereafter, performing with significantly higher production values and the addition of various theatrical visual elements. The band's performance of "Happiness in Slavery
" from the Woodstock concert earned the group a Grammy Award
for Best Metal Performance
in 1995. Entertainment Weekly
described the band's Woodstock '94 performance by saying "Reznor unstrings rock to its horrifying, melodramatic core--an experience as draining as it is exhilarating". New Musical Express had a similar sentiment after the band's Lollapalooza performance in 1991, describing the show as "genuinely frightening", and asking the reader to "decide for yourself if it's choreographed chaos or unbridled grievous bodily harm".
The main leg of the tour featured Marilyn Manson
as the supporting act, who Reznor had recently signed to his Nothing Records
label. At the time, Marilyn Manson featured bassist Jeordie White
(then playing under the pseudonym "Twiggy Ramirez"), who would later play bass with Nine Inch Nails from 2005 to 2007. After another tour leg supporting the remix album Further Down the Spiral
, Nine Inch Nails contributed to the Alternative Nation Festival
in Australia. Following the three-date alternative music festival, Nine Inch Nails embarked on the Dissonance Tour
, which included 26 separate performances with co-headliner David Bowie
. This tour observed a format placing Nine Inch Nails as the opening act, transitioning into Bowie's set with joint performances of both bands' songs. However, the crowds reportedly did not respond positively to the combination.
The tour concluded with a three-night Nothing Records showcase called Nights of Nothing which included performances from Nothing bands Marilyn Manson, Prick, Meat Beat Manifesto
, and Pop Will Eat Itself
, and concluded with an 80-minute set from Nine Inch Nails. Kerrang!
described the Nine Inch Nails set during the Nights of Nothing showcase as "tight, brash and dramatic", but was disappointed at the lack of new material. On the second of the three nights, Richard Patrick was briefly reunited with the band, as he contributed guitar to a performance of "Head Like a Hole
". After the Self-Destruct tour, Chris Vrenna, member of the live band since 1988 and frequent contributor to Nine Inch Nails studio recordings, left the band permanently to pursue a career in producing
and to form the band Tweaker.
, the live-band reformed for the Fragility tour. The lineup remained largely the same from the Self-Destruct tour, featuring Finck, Clouser, and Lohner. To replace long-time member Vrenna, Reznor held open auditions to find a new drummer, eventually picking then-unknown Jerome Dillon
. Dillon would remain a member of the live band until 2005.
Nine Inch Nails' record label at the time, Interscope Records
, reportedly refused to fund the promotional tour following The Fragile's lukewarm sales. Reznor instead committed himself to fund the entire tour out of his own pocket, concluding that "The reality is, I’m broke at the end of the tour," but also adding "I will never present a show that isn’t fantastic."
The Fragility tour began in late 1999, running until mid-2000, and was broken into two major legs, Fragility 1.0 and Fragility 2.0 respectively. Destinations included Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and North America. Before the first Fragility performance date in Spain, Nine Inch Nails opened their final rehearsal in London
to 100 fans. Kick-starting the tour was a performance of the title track from The Fragile at the MTV
Video Music Awards. Atari Teenage Riot
opened for Nine Inch Nails during Fragility 1.0, and A Perfect Circle
for Fragility 2.0. At the time, A Perfect Circle featured Josh Freese
on drums, who would later replace Dillon and play drums for Nine Inch Nails from 2005 to 2007. The tour featured increasingly large production values, including a triptych
video display created by contemporary video artist Bill Viola
. Rolling Stone
magazine named the Fragility the best tour of 2000.
In 2002, the tour documentary And All That Could Have Been
was released featuring a collection of performances from the Fragility 2.0 tour. While making the DVD, Reznor commented on the tour in retrospect by saying "I thought the show was really, really good when we were doing it", but later admitted that he "can't watch [the DVD] at all. I was sick for most of that tour and I really don't think it was Nine Inch Nails at its best".
in 2005, the live band was reassembled for the Live: With Teeth tour. Since the previous tour five years earlier, much of band had moved on in their careers, and only drummer Jerome Dillon rejoined. To find replacements, Reznor held auditions during December 2004. He stated that keyboardist Alessandro Cortini
"fit in immediately", though he had trouble finding a guitarist to replace Robin Finck until auditioning Aaron North
.
The tour began with a series of small-club performances early in 2005. The band told journalists they were "pleasantly surprised by the interest" of fans despite their lengthy absence. This initial leg of the tour also included a headlining performance at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
. The band followed with a North American arena tour in autumn 2005, supported by Queens of the Stone Age
, Death From Above 1979
, Autolux
, and Saul Williams
. Williams performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at the Voodoo Music Experience festival during a headlining appearance in hurricane-stricken
New Orleans, Reznor's former home. To conclude the With Teeth era of the band, Nine Inch Nails completed a tour of North American amphitheaters in the summer of 2006, joined by Bauhaus
, TV on the Radio
, and Peaches
. The 2007 release Beside You in Time
features performances from the North American arena tour, the North American amphitheater tour, and a number of studio rehearsals.
Nine Inch Nails were scheduled to perform at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards
, but dropped themselves from the show due to a disagreement with the network over the use of an unaltered image of George W. Bush
as a backdrop to the band's performance of "The Hand that Feeds
". Soon afterwards, Reznor wrote on the official Nine Inch Nails website: "apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me". MTV replied by saying they respected Reznor's point of view, but were "uncomfortable" with the performance being "built around partisan political statements". A performance by the Foo Fighters
replaced Nine Inch Nails' time slot on the show.
During the first arena performance in 2005, Dillon was forced to stop midway through the show and was subsequently hospitalized. His condition was later diagnosed as a non-life threatening cardiac disorder, a consequence of his thyroid
medication. Dillon later remarked that when he was ready to return he encountered "complete apathy and no sympathy" from Reznor and Nine Inch Nails management. Reznor in turn wrote that Dillon's "recollection of the events leading to his departure from the band is once again inaccurate". Josh Freese
initially replaced Dillon for two shows before Alex Carapetis
joined the band for the remainder of the arena tour. Freese eventually replaced Carapetis and joined the band on a permanent basis.
, Nine Inch Nails began a world tour in 2007, including their first ever performance in China. Reznor continued to tour with the same band he concluded the Live: With Teeth tour, which was composed of North, White, Freese, and Cortini. Supporting acts included Ladytron
, Unkle
, The Dandy Warhols
, Alec Empire
, and Serena Maneesh
.
The Year Zero project included an alternate reality game
of the same name, with much of the game revolving around various live shows.
During a Nine Inch Nails concert in Lisbon, Portugal
, a USB flash drive
was found in a bathroom stall containing a high-quality MP3
of the track "My Violent Heart", a song from the then-unreleased album. A second USB drive was found after a concert in Barcelona
, containing the track "Me, I'm Not". Following the release of Year Zero
the focus of the tour shifted towards debuting and promoting tracks from the new album. While some of these songs were performed by all 5 band members as conventional guitar-driven rock songs, two of them ("Me, I'm Not" and "The Great Destroyer") were played by Reznor, guitarist North and keyboard player Cortini as a 3 piece, using a combination of live guitars and pre-programmed samples triggered onstage with computers and manipulated in real time using Ableton software.
In April 2007, Nine Inch Nails fans received in-game telephone-calls in which they were invited to a "resistance meeting" in Los Angeles. At the meeting, fans attended a fictional Art is Resistance
meeting, and were later rewarded by an unannounced performance by Nine Inch Nails. The concert was cut short as the meeting was raided by a fictional SWAT
team and the audience was rushed out of the building.
Later that year, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
reported that the September 18 show in Honolulu would be the last performance of the current incarnation of the Nine Inch Nails live band. Reznor told the newspaper "at this point, I want to switch things around a bit. Nine Inch Nails as a rock band configuration, we've done it and we've done it again. I see other ways I can present the material in concert, more challenging, something new. I don't want it to go stale". In the same article, Reznor also admitted that "the idea of five guys playing loud music [for] two hours ... has got to change once finances come into play, especially performing in markets outside of the mainland U.S. I want to whittle things down".
and The Slip
, were released in March and May 2008 respectively. Both albums feature contributions from live-band member Alessandro Cortini. Since the release of Ghosts I–IV, a 25-date tour was announced in several North American cities. Cortini and Freese returned as members from the previous tour, while Robin Finck
rejoined the band. The lineup was initially to include Rich Fownes
, but before any scheduled performances it was revealed that Justin Meldal-Johnsen
would instead be contributing on bass guitar.
Supporting acts for the tour include Deerhunter
, Crystal Castles
, Does It Offend You, Yeah?
, Ghostland Observatory
, A Place to Bury Strangers
, and White Williams
. In early June, a tour EP
was released for free on the Nine Inch Nails website featuring four songs from the supporting artists and one from Nine Inch Nails. The files are DRM
-free MP3
s that are fully tagged, and included with the download are desktop wallpapers and a printable tour poster.
The band headlined the 2008 Lollapalooza
festival, the 2008 Virgin Festival
, and the first Pemberton Festival
.
In May 2008, Nine Inch Nails announced that premium seating for all the upcoming 2008 tour shows would be offered in a pre-sale for fans who registered at the official Nine Inch Nails website. In an effort to combat ticket scalpers
, each concert ticket will list the purchaser's legal name. The ticketing process was previously used for smaller pre-sales and was available exclusively to fan club members.
On July 26, Reznor introduced an "unplugged" portion into the live show in which the band steps to the front of the stage about an hour into the show, with Reznor on vibraphone and bassist Meldal-Johnsen playing an upright bass. The 20-minute jazzy, acoustic set is taken mostly from Ghosts I - IV. The stage show also featured mesh LED curtains that projected various visuals, ranging from falling rain to static to a ruined city, and made the band appear to be playing on "a stage that appeared to be constructed entirely out of lights." Nine Inch Nails
later confirmed that the tour was to extend to South America and it was thought this would be the last Americas
set of dates but soon after Reznor announced yet more North American dates including two dates in tourist capital Florida
.
On October 8, 2008, after finishing up their last show in South America, Reznor posted on the official Nine Inch Nails website blog that Josh Freese would be leaving the band following the completion of the current tour. Shortly after, it was announced that Alessandro Cortini would also be leaving the band. On November 15, 2008, Reznor announced via the official Nine Inch Nails website that Ilan Rubin
of Lostprophets
would be replacing Freese after his departure at the end of 2008. No replacement was announced for Cortini, and the band subsequently toured as a 4-piece without a full time keyboard player.
In 2008, Reznor decided to put Nine Inch Nails on indefinite hiatus. He later clarified that "NIN as a touring live band or live band that's on the road all the time [would be] stopping" after a comprehensive tour, but that he would continue to produce music thereafter.
After a set of shows in Australia and New Zealand, Nine Inch Nails embarked on a North American tour of amphitheatres with Jane's Addiction
and Street Sweeper Social Club
dubbed "NIN/JA 2009". Concerts in Europe and Asia were also announced before Reznor added a series of smaller-venue shows in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The final show was on September 10, 2009.
s of the world, I’m sick of that shit. I don’t want a gas station attendant being my hero. I grew up with Gene Simmons
. I grew up with Ziggy Stardust
."
Many songs are typically accompanied with specially designed visual aids, including synchronized lighting effects and projected stock-footage montages. Early performances of the song "Hurt", for example, were accompanied by a projected montage of clouds, charred bodies, mushroom clouds, maggots, and war refugees, a performance of which is featured in the song's music video. Recent performances of the song, however, have featured less lighting effects.
Since 1999, the visual presentation of Nine Inch Nails live shows have been directed by Rob Sheridan
, while Bill Viola designed a large triptych display for the Fragility tour. The images displayed on the triptych focused on storm and water imagery. And All That Could Have Been
features an audio commentary track by Viola describing the display and his inspirations for it.
For the Live: With Teeth tour, Roy Bennett and Martin Phillips were responsible for the lighting design and stage design respectively. Bennett explained in a 2005 interview that much of the lighting was done using a series of LED lights
arranged in "stalactites or stalagmites [formations] to tie in to the album artwork". DLP projectors were also used to project images onto a gauze screen in front of the stage.
Using the gauze projection-screen, Phillips, Reznor, and Sheridan devised a "gag" where they projected "a sheet of glass shattering onto a downstage kabuki scrim that would drop as the glass shatters fell. ... We settled on Trent swinging his guitar at the gauze [and] shattering it, but with all the pieces falling up as the [screen] flew out". This technique can be seen in the tour documentary Beside You in Time. In contrast to the lighting of previous tours, Performance 2007 featured minimal lighting that was designed to shadow Reznor and the band.
The visual elements of the live shows has been subject to much commentary. The Boston Globe
described the Fragility tour as "one of the most outstanding light shows in memory". A reviewer from the Contra Costa Times
described a Live: With Teeth performance as being "heightened by just the right amount of dark purple or blue spotlights, with up-lighting from the stage front, giving the band a horror-flick feel".
in 2004 and indefinitely delayed from being released. However, both discs appeared on BitTorrent networks in December 2006. And All That Could Have Been
, which features performances from the Fragility 2.0 tour, was released in 2002 as a live CD and double DVD. An easter egg
in the DVD version features a performance with Marilyn Manson
at Madison Square Garden
of the songs "Starfuckers, Inc.
" and Manson's "The Beautiful People". In 2007, Nine Inch Nails released Beside You in Time
, featuring performances from the Live: With Teeth tour. The DVD also features rehearsal footage, music videos, and still photographs from the tour.
s, drums
, keyboard
s, and samplers
. Later incarnations replaced the keyboards and samplers with an additional guitarist, and incarnations after that added a multi-instrumentalist whose main role was as a bassist
but also played guitars
and keyboards
on a number of songs. Finally, the live component of Nine Inch Nails has settled as a five-piece band since the Self Destruct tour from 1994. On the Performance 2007 tour, some songs from the Year Zero
album were performed as a 3 piece band, featuring Reznor, keyboard player Alessandro Cortini and guitarist Aaron North, using a combination of live guitars and triggered loops. In September 2007, Reznor expressed his interest in moving away from the "rock band configuration" to explore "other ways [to] present the material in concert", though once again the 2008 incarnation consisted of five positions, but adding a variety of instruments not normally used in Nine Inch Nails such as double bass
, various percussion instruments, steel guitar
, vibraphone
and other acoustic instruments as well as sampled sounds triggered from a variety of electronic instruments. No replacement was hired for keyboard player Alessandro Cortini after he left the band in late 2008, and the 2009 live band is a four-piece, with the role of keyboard player being shared between all members.
Describing the selection process, early contributor Chris Vrenna told Gannett News "coming from the same emotional background, I feel, is more important than how well you can play your instrument. That's one reason that makes our shows more intense when we're up there ... We found people that understood that. It makes us stronger". Reznor described his selection of the earliest incarnations of the live band by saying "I'm not in the position to offer somebody a thousand dollars a week to rehearse ... So I took some young guys who were malleable, who would basically do what I want them to do but expand on it. The only context I've worked with them in so far is, 'Here are the songs, here are your parts, learn them.' "
Between major tours, live band members have on occasion contributed instrumental performances to official Nine Inch Nails releases, though creative control and direction has always been the responsibility of Reznor. Live-band members who have contributed to major Nine Inch Nails studio releases are denoted by a "#" below. Most members provide backing vocals during live performances.
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
, an industrial rock
Industrial rock
Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and specific rock subgenres. Industrial rock spawned industrial metal, with which it is often confused...
band fronted by Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...
, did various live performances throughout the world, including tours in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Japan, and China. While Reznor controls the creative and musical direction of Nine Inch Nails in-studio, the touring band performs different arrangements of the songs in live settings. In addition to regular concerts, the band has performed in both supporting and headlining roles at festivals such as Woodstock '94
Woodstock '94
Woodstock '94, often called the "commercial Woodstock" or "Mudstock", was a music festival organized to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival of 1969...
, Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
1991 and 2008, as well as many other one-off performances including the MTV Video Music Awards
MTV Video Music Awards
An MTV Video Music Award , is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in music videos...
. There are 938 gigs of the band overall, when counted.
Nine Inch Nails' live performances contrast with its in-studio counterpart.
Reznor writes and performs nearly all Nine Inch Nails studio material, with occasional instrumental and vocal contributions from others artists. However, Reznor has typically assembled groups of backing musicians to interpret songs for tours and other live performances. Keyboardist Alessandro Cortini
Alessandro Cortini
Alessandro Cortini is an Italian musician best known for touring and recording with the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from 2004 to 2008. Currently, Cortini is also the frontman for the Los Angeles based electronic-alternative band SONOIO. In addition, he was a touring member of The...
said that "if you see the show and you're used to the CDs it's pretty clear that the studio entity is different from the live entity".
The only constant member of the live band is Reznor, who cites the long periods of time between major tours as one reason for the ever-changing live lineup. Live Nine Inch Nails performances are typically accompanied by lighting, stage, and video projection effects. Since 1999, the visual design components of live shows have been curated by Reznor with Rob Sheridan
Rob Sheridan
Rob Sheridan is an American graphic designer, director, and photographer best known for his extensive work with the band Nine Inch Nails....
. Three tours have been chronicled on live albums and tour documentaries.
Critical and commercial response to Nine Inch Nails live performances has generally been positive. Critics have pointed to the concerts' aggressive on-stage dynamic and visual designs as high points. Reznor decided in 2008 to cease touring with the band after a 2009 farewell tour.
Pretty Hate Machine Tour Series (1988–1991)
Reznor assembled the first live line-up in 1988 to support the Canadian industrial musicIndustrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
band Skinny Puppy
Skinny Puppy
Skinny Puppy is a Canadian industrial musical group, formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1982. The group is widely considered to be the founders of the electro-industrial genre....
on tour. The three-piece band consisted of Reznor on guitars and lead vocals, Ron Musarra on drums, and Chris Vrenna on keyboards. The band was poorly received, however, and they were asked to leave the tour after 10 dates. After the Skinny Puppy tour the band was rearranged and expanded to include a fourth member; Vrenna was moved to drums, Nick Rushe and later David Hymes contributed on keyboards, while Richard Patrick
Richard Patrick
Richard Patrick is an American rock musician. He is the frontman for the band Filter, a founding member of the supergroup Army of Anyone, and has served as a touring guitarist for Nine Inch Nails....
was added as guitarist.
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride, Glasgow in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid...
in 1990, and later for Peter Murphy
Peter Murphy (musician)
Peter John Murphy is an English rock vocalist. He was the vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus, and later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as Deep and Love Hysteria...
. During these tours, Reznor began to smash equipment while on stage, and Rockbeat interviewer Mike Gitter attributed the band's early success to this aggressive attitude. In 1991, the band undertook a world tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival, where, according to biographer Martin Huxley, they "stole the show". Nine Inch Nails was then invited to open for Guns N' Roses on their European Tour, though they were reportedly poorly received yet again. Before the Lollapalooza date, Chris Vrenna left the band due to a fall out with Reznor, and was replaced for the remainder of the tour by drummer Jeff Ward
Jeff Ward (musician)
Jeff Ward was a drummer for various rock bands including Hammeron, Nine Inch Nails, Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Lard, and Low Pop Suicide....
. Vrenna would rejoin the band for the Self-Destruct tour in 1994. At the conclusion of the Pretty Hate Machine tour, Richard Patrick left the group to form his own band, Filter
Filter (band)
Filter is a rock group formed in 1993 in Cleveland by singer Richard Patrick and guitarist/programmer Brian Liesegang. Filter has released five studio albums, the most recent being The Trouble with Angels, which was released on August 17, 2010....
.
Self-Destruct (1994–1995)
After the 1994 release of The Downward SpiralThe Downward Spiral
The Downward Spiral is the second studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released March 8, 1994, on Interscope Records. It is a concept album detailing the destruction of a man, from the beginning of his "downward spiral" to his climactic attempt at suicide...
, the live band embarked on the Self-Destruct tour in support of the album. Vrenna and Woolley returned on drums and keyboards respectively. Robin Finck
Robin Finck
Robin Finck is an American guitarist of Nine Inch Nails and former lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses. He is one of only a few artists who has played in two different bands listed on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock"; Nine Inch Nails and Guns N' Roses .-Career:Finck grew up in Marietta,...
replaced Patrick on guitar, while bassist Danny Lohner
Danny Lohner
Daniel Patrick "Danny" Lohner , frequently known as Renholdër, is an American rock musician who plays bass guitar, electric guitar, and keyboards. He worked with Trent Reznor on numerous occasions, both with Nine Inch Nails and on the now defunct Tapeworm project...
was added to the line-up. The tour included a mud-drenched performance at Woodstock '94
Woodstock '94
Woodstock '94, often called the "commercial Woodstock" or "Mudstock", was a music festival organized to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival of 1969...
, which was broadcast on Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
and seen in as many as 24 million homes. Nine Inch Nails received considerable mainstream success thereafter, performing with significantly higher production values and the addition of various theatrical visual elements. The band's performance of "Happiness in Slavery
Happiness in Slavery
"Happiness in Slavery" is a song by the American act Nine Inch Nails. The song takes its title and refrain from Jean Paulhan's preface to Story of O. It is available on the Broken EP and was also released as a 12" promotional single in November 1992. The song peaked at number 13 on the U.S...
" from the Woodstock concert earned the group a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Metal Performance
Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards to recording artists for works containing quality performances in the heavy metal music genre...
in 1995. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
described the band's Woodstock '94 performance by saying "Reznor unstrings rock to its horrifying, melodramatic core--an experience as draining as it is exhilarating". New Musical Express had a similar sentiment after the band's Lollapalooza performance in 1991, describing the show as "genuinely frightening", and asking the reader to "decide for yourself if it's choreographed chaos or unbridled grievous bodily harm".
Marilyn Manson (band)
Marilyn Manson is an American metal band from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Formed in 1989 by Brian Warner and Scott Putesky, the group was originally named Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids with their uniquely theatrical performances gathering a local cult following in the early '90s. This attention...
as the supporting act, who Reznor had recently signed to his Nothing Records
Nothing Records
Nothing Records was an American record label, specializing in industrial rock and electronic music, founded by John Malm Jr. and Trent Reznor in 1992...
label. At the time, Marilyn Manson featured bassist Jeordie White
Jeordie White
Jeordie Osbourne White , better known by his pseudonym Twiggy Ramirez , is an American musician, who is best known for being the bassist and guitarist for Marilyn Manson. He was also the bassist for A Perfect Circle, and Nine Inch Nails...
(then playing under the pseudonym "Twiggy Ramirez"), who would later play bass with Nine Inch Nails from 2005 to 2007. After another tour leg supporting the remix album Further Down the Spiral
Further Down the Spiral
Further Down the Spiral is a remix album by Nine Inch Nails, and was released on June 1, 1995. It is the tenth official Nine Inch Nails release and is the companion remix disc to The Downward Spiral...
, Nine Inch Nails contributed to the Alternative Nation Festival
Alternative Nation Festival
Alternative Nation was a series of music festivals held in Australia in 1995. It was organised by a consortium of concert promoters, Michael Coppell, Michael Chugg and Michael Gudinski and backed by the Triple M radio network as an alternative to the Big Day Out...
in Australia. Following the three-date alternative music festival, Nine Inch Nails embarked on the Dissonance Tour
Outside Tour
The Outside Tour, with David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails co-headlining, opened on 14 September 1995 at Meadows Music Theatre - Hartford, CT with Prick as support band. On selected dates Reeves Gabrels performed songs from his album, The Sacred Squall of Now in addition to performing with Nine Inch...
, which included 26 separate performances with co-headliner David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
. This tour observed a format placing Nine Inch Nails as the opening act, transitioning into Bowie's set with joint performances of both bands' songs. However, the crowds reportedly did not respond positively to the combination.
The tour concluded with a three-night Nothing Records showcase called Nights of Nothing which included performances from Nothing bands Marilyn Manson, Prick, Meat Beat Manifesto
Meat Beat Manifesto
Meat Beat Manifesto, often shortened to Meat Beat or MBM, is an electronic music group originally consisting of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens formed in 1987 in Swindon, UK...
, and Pop Will Eat Itself
Pop Will Eat Itself
Pop Will Eat Itself are an English alternative rock band, originally formed in Stourbridge in 1986, with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. Initially known as a Grebo act, their style changed to incorporate sample driven indie and industrial rock...
, and concluded with an 80-minute set from Nine Inch Nails. Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...
described the Nine Inch Nails set during the Nights of Nothing showcase as "tight, brash and dramatic", but was disappointed at the lack of new material. On the second of the three nights, Richard Patrick was briefly reunited with the band, as he contributed guitar to a performance of "Head Like a Hole
Head Like a Hole
"Head Like a Hole" is a song by the American industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails. A song influenced by industrial metal group Ministry, it was released as the second single from the group's debut album Pretty Hate Machine...
". After the Self-Destruct tour, Chris Vrenna, member of the live band since 1988 and frequent contributor to Nine Inch Nails studio recordings, left the band permanently to pursue a career in producing
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
and to form the band Tweaker.
Fragility (1999–2000)
In support of Nine Inch Nails' third full-length studio album, The FragileThe Fragile
In terms of narrative, virtually no references are made to the aspects depicted in The Downward Spiral. Like The Downward Spiral, The Fragile is a concept album, but, as a double album, is nearly twice the length of its predecessor. Reznor's vocals, for the most part, are much more melodic and...
, the live-band reformed for the Fragility tour. The lineup remained largely the same from the Self-Destruct tour, featuring Finck, Clouser, and Lohner. To replace long-time member Vrenna, Reznor held open auditions to find a new drummer, eventually picking then-unknown Jerome Dillon
Jerome Dillon
Jerome Dillon is a professional musician, best known for his tenure as drummer with industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails from 1999-2005. After his departure, his own project, Nearly, released its debut album reminder in December 2005, along with a cd maxi-single for the song Straight to...
. Dillon would remain a member of the live band until 2005.
Nine Inch Nails' record label at the time, Interscope Records
Interscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that currently operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-History:...
, reportedly refused to fund the promotional tour following The Fragile
The Fragility tour began in late 1999, running until mid-2000, and was broken into two major legs, Fragility 1.0 and Fragility 2.0 respectively. Destinations included Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and North America. Before the first Fragility performance date in Spain, Nine Inch Nails opened their final rehearsal in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to 100 fans. Kick-starting the tour was a performance of the title track from The Fragile at the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
Video Music Awards. Atari Teenage Riot
Atari Teenage Riot
'Atari Teenage Riot' is a German digital hardcore group formed in Berlin in 1992. The name was taken from a Portuguese Joe song 'Teenage Riot' from the 'Teen-age Riot' album, with the word 'Atari' added as an Atari ST computer was used to create compositions...
opened for Nine Inch Nails during Fragility 1.0, and A Perfect Circle
A Perfect Circle
A Perfect Circle is an American rock supergroup formed in 1999 by guitarist Billy Howerdel and Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. The original incarnation of the band also included Paz Lenchantin on bass, Troy Van Leeuwen on guitar, and Tim Alexander on drums...
for Fragility 2.0. At the time, A Perfect Circle featured Josh Freese
Josh Freese
Josh Freese is an American session drummer and songwriter. He is a permanent member of A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, and Devo, having formerly played drums for Nine Inch Nails from late 2005 until late 2008, and for Guns N' Roses from mid-1998 to 2001. Freese has appeared on close to 300 records....
on drums, who would later replace Dillon and play drums for Nine Inch Nails from 2005 to 2007. The tour featured increasingly large production values, including a triptych
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
video display created by contemporary video artist Bill Viola
Bill Viola
Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist. He is considered a leading figure in the generation of artists whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media...
. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine named the Fragility the best tour of 2000.
In 2002, the tour documentary And All That Could Have Been
And All that Could Have Been
And All That Could Have Been is a double album released by Nine Inch Nails in 2002. The live album contains music recorded during the Fragility v2.0 US tour in 2000; Disc 1 is a live album of their normal set list of the time, while disc B contains a studio album titled Still containing...
was released featuring a collection of performances from the Fragility 2.0 tour. While making the DVD, Reznor commented on the tour in retrospect by saying "I thought the show was really, really good when we were doing it", but later admitted that he "can't watch [the DVD] at all. I was sick for most of that tour and I really don't think it was Nine Inch Nails at its best".
Live: With Teeth (2005–2006)
Following the release of With TeethWith Teeth
With Teeth is the fourth studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on May 3, 2005, by Interscope Records. The album was produced by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and long-time collaborator Alan Moulder. It was Reznor's first original studio album since The...
in 2005, the live band was reassembled for the Live: With Teeth tour. Since the previous tour five years earlier, much of band had moved on in their careers, and only drummer Jerome Dillon rejoined. To find replacements, Reznor held auditions during December 2004. He stated that keyboardist Alessandro Cortini
Alessandro Cortini
Alessandro Cortini is an Italian musician best known for touring and recording with the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from 2004 to 2008. Currently, Cortini is also the frontman for the Los Angeles based electronic-alternative band SONOIO. In addition, he was a touring member of The...
"fit in immediately", though he had trouble finding a guitarist to replace Robin Finck until auditioning Aaron North
Aaron North
Aaron Wright North, born March 22, 1979 is the co-founder and former guitarist of punk band The Icarus Line, the former lead guitarist of the industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails and currently the vocalist and guitarist of the band Jubilee...
.
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is a three-day annual music and arts festival, organized by Goldenvoice and held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Inland Empire's Coachella Valley...
. The band followed with a North American arena tour in autumn 2005, supported by Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, United States, formed in 1997. The band's line-up has always included founding member Josh Homme , with the current line-up including longtime members Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo , alongside Michael Shuman and...
, Death From Above 1979
Death from Above 1979
Death from Above 1979 are a Toronto-based Canadian dance-punk/noise rock duo. Their album, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine, was released in late 2004. The band broke up in 2006, but announced a reunion in 2011.-History:...
, Autolux
Autolux
Autolux is an avant-garde rock group consisting of Eugene Goreshter , Greg Edwards and Carla Azar...
, and Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
. Williams performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at the Voodoo Music Experience festival during a headlining appearance in hurricane-stricken
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
New Orleans, Reznor's former home. To conclude the With Teeth era of the band, Nine Inch Nails completed a tour of North American amphitheaters in the summer of 2006, joined by Bauhaus
Bauhaus (band)
Bauhaus was an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. The group consisted of Peter Murphy , Daniel Ash , Kevin Haskins and David J . The band was originally Bauhaus 1919 before they dropped the numerical portion within a year of formation...
, TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio is an American art rock band formed in 2001 in Brooklyn, New York, whose music spans numerous diverse genres, from post-punk to electro and free jazz to soul music....
, and Peaches
Peaches (musician)
Merrill Beth Nisker , better known by her stage name Peaches, is a Canadian electronic musician and performance artist who lives in Berlin, Germany. Her songs are noted for disregarding traditional gender norms and their use of sexually explicit lyrics...
. The 2007 release Beside You in Time
Beside You in Time
Beside You in Time is a live home video release by Nine Inch Nails, issued in Europe on February 26, 2007, and the United States on February 27, 2007. Beside You in Time is also the title of a track on the NIN album With Teeth. The video documents NIN's 2006 Live: With Teeth tour, and is available...
features performances from the North American arena tour, the North American amphitheater tour, and a number of studio rehearsals.
Nine Inch Nails were scheduled to perform at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
, but dropped themselves from the show due to a disagreement with the network over the use of an unaltered image of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
as a backdrop to the band's performance of "The Hand that Feeds
The Hand that Feeds
"The Hand That Feeds" is a song by the American industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails, released as the lead single for the album With Teeth . It is the highest charting song by Nine Inch Nails on all charts except for U.S...
". Soon afterwards, Reznor wrote on the official Nine Inch Nails website: "apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me". MTV replied by saying they respected Reznor's point of view, but were "uncomfortable" with the performance being "built around partisan political statements". A performance by the Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
replaced Nine Inch Nails' time slot on the show.
During the first arena performance in 2005, Dillon was forced to stop midway through the show and was subsequently hospitalized. His condition was later diagnosed as a non-life threatening cardiac disorder, a consequence of his thyroid
Thyroid
The thyroid gland or simply, the thyroid , in vertebrate anatomy, is one of the largest endocrine glands. The thyroid gland is found in the neck, below the thyroid cartilage...
medication. Dillon later remarked that when he was ready to return he encountered "complete apathy and no sympathy" from Reznor and Nine Inch Nails management. Reznor in turn wrote that Dillon's "recollection of the events leading to his departure from the band is once again inaccurate". Josh Freese
Josh Freese
Josh Freese is an American session drummer and songwriter. He is a permanent member of A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, and Devo, having formerly played drums for Nine Inch Nails from late 2005 until late 2008, and for Guns N' Roses from mid-1998 to 2001. Freese has appeared on close to 300 records....
initially replaced Dillon for two shows before Alex Carapetis
Alex Carapetis
Alex Carapetis is a professional drummer. After studying jazz at the Adelaide Conservatorium in 2000, he moved to Sydney to further his music career. In 2004 and 2005, Carapetis toured full-time with Jimmy Barnes in Australia and New Zealand. In July 2005, Carapetis toured with Delta Goodrem on...
joined the band for the remainder of the arena tour. Freese eventually replaced Carapetis and joined the band on a permanent basis.
Performance 2007 (2007)
Having taken a break from touring to complete work on Year ZeroYear Zero (album)
Year Zero is the fifth studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on April 17, 2007, by Interscope Records. Frontman Trent Reznor wrote the album's music and lyrics while touring in support of the group's previous release, With Teeth...
, Nine Inch Nails began a world tour in 2007, including their first ever performance in China. Reznor continued to tour with the same band he concluded the Live: With Teeth tour, which was composed of North, White, Freese, and Cortini. Supporting acts included Ladytron
Ladytron
Ladytron are an English electronic band formed in 1999 in Liverpool, Merseyside. The group consists of Helen Marnie , Mira Aroyo , Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu .Their sound blends electropop with New Wave and shoegazing elements. Ladytron described their sound as "electronic pop"...
, Unkle
UNKLE
Unkle are a British musical outfit founded in 1994 by school friends James Lavelle and Tim Goldsworthy. Originally categorized as trip-hop, the group once included producer DJ Shadow and have employed a variety of guest artists and producers.-First incarnation :Lavelle and Goldsworthy were joined...
, The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols are an American alternative rock band formed in Portland, Oregon in 1994. The band was founded by singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor and guitarist Peter Holmström, with keyboardist Zia McCabe and drummer Eric Hedford later joining. Hedford left in 1998 and was replaced by...
, Alec Empire
Alec Empire
Alec Empire is a German musician who is best known as a founding member of the band Atari Teenage Riot. Also a prolific and distinguished solo artist, producer and DJ, he has released well over a hundred albums, EPs and singles and remixed over seventy tracks for various artists including Björk...
, and Serena Maneesh
Serena Maneesh
Serena-Maneesh is an alternative rock band from Oslo, Norway.- Significance of the Name:...
.
Alternate reality game
An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
of the same name, with much of the game revolving around various live shows.
During a Nine Inch Nails concert in Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, a USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
was found in a bathroom stall containing a high-quality MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
of the track "My Violent Heart", a song from the then-unreleased album. A second USB drive was found after a concert in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, containing the track "Me, I'm Not". Following the release of Year Zero
Year Zero (album)
Year Zero is the fifth studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on April 17, 2007, by Interscope Records. Frontman Trent Reznor wrote the album's music and lyrics while touring in support of the group's previous release, With Teeth...
the focus of the tour shifted towards debuting and promoting tracks from the new album. While some of these songs were performed by all 5 band members as conventional guitar-driven rock songs, two of them ("Me, I'm Not" and "The Great Destroyer") were played by Reznor, guitarist North and keyboard player Cortini as a 3 piece, using a combination of live guitars and pre-programmed samples triggered onstage with computers and manipulated in real time using Ableton software.
In April 2007, Nine Inch Nails fans received in-game telephone-calls in which they were invited to a "resistance meeting" in Los Angeles. At the meeting, fans attended a fictional Art is Resistance
Characters and organizations in the Year Zero alternate reality game
In the Year Zero alternate reality game several characters and organizations are mentioned. Most of them have websites, though some of them physically cannot be able to create a website , and some hold websites of their subsidiary organizations In the Year Zero alternate reality game several...
meeting, and were later rewarded by an unannounced performance by Nine Inch Nails. The concert was cut short as the meeting was raided by a fictional SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team and the audience was rushed out of the building.
Later that year, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii...
reported that the September 18 show in Honolulu would be the last performance of the current incarnation of the Nine Inch Nails live band. Reznor told the newspaper "at this point, I want to switch things around a bit. Nine Inch Nails as a rock band configuration, we've done it and we've done it again. I see other ways I can present the material in concert, more challenging, something new. I don't want it to go stale". In the same article, Reznor also admitted that "the idea of five guys playing loud music [for] two hours ... has got to change once finances come into play, especially performing in markets outside of the mainland U.S. I want to whittle things down".
Lights in the Sky (2008)
The seventh and eighth major Nine Inch Nails studio-releases, Ghosts I–IVGhosts I–IV
Ghosts I–IV is the sixth studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on March 2, 2008. The team behind the project included Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor, studio-collaborators Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder, and instrumental contributions from Alessandro Cortini,...
and The Slip
The Slip (album)
The Slip is the seventh studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on July 22, 2008. It was the fourth consecutive Nine Inch Nails release to be produced by frontman Trent Reznor with collaborators Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder...
, were released in March and May 2008 respectively. Both albums feature contributions from live-band member Alessandro Cortini. Since the release of Ghosts I–IV, a 25-date tour was announced in several North American cities. Cortini and Freese returned as members from the previous tour, while Robin Finck
Robin Finck
Robin Finck is an American guitarist of Nine Inch Nails and former lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses. He is one of only a few artists who has played in two different bands listed on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock"; Nine Inch Nails and Guns N' Roses .-Career:Finck grew up in Marietta,...
rejoined the band. The lineup was initially to include Rich Fownes
Rich Fownes
Richard Alexander Fownes is a bass, guitar and synth player from Brighton, England. He currently plays and writes for Bad For Lazarus and With Scissors. He also plays live for UNKLE....
, but before any scheduled performances it was revealed that Justin Meldal-Johnsen
Justin Meldal-Johnsen
Justin Meldal-Johnsen is an American musician and bassist, best known for his work with Grammy Award-winning artist Beck. He served as the touring bassist for Nine Inch Nails during their final tours.-Recording career:...
would instead be contributing on bass guitar.
Deerhunter
Deerhunter is an American four-piece indie rock group originating from Atlanta, Georgia. The band, consisting of Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, Josh Fauver, and Lockett Pundt, have described themselves as "ambient punk," though they incorporate a wide range of genres, including noise rock, art...
, Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles (band)
Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and...
, Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Does It Offend You, Yeah? are a British electronic rock band from Reading, Berkshire.-History:Does It Offend You, Yeah? were formed in 2006 in Reading, UK by James Rushent and Dan Coop and soon joined by Rob Bloomfield and Morgan Quaintance....
, Ghostland Observatory
Ghostland Observatory
Ghostland Observatory is an American music duo based in Austin, Texas. Their music has been described as a combination of electro, rock and funk by Allmusic, and "electro-dance soul rock" by Gothamist....
, A Place to Bury Strangers
A Place to Bury Strangers
A Place to Bury Strangers are a New York–based noise rock band composed of Oliver Ackermann , Dion Lunadon and Jay Space . The band plays a heavy, atmospheric wall of sound-influenced blend of psychedelic rock, shoegaze and space rock...
, and White Williams
White Williams
White Williams is the music project of Cleveland-based musician Joe Williams.-Background:Williams was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Williams's music career began in 1999 as a fifteen-year-old drummer for Ohio area bands Oblongata , Machete , Mr Mad Man and USA Crypt...
. In early June, a tour EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
was released for free on the Nine Inch Nails website featuring four songs from the supporting artists and one from Nine Inch Nails. The files are DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
-free MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
s that are fully tagged, and included with the download are desktop wallpapers and a printable tour poster.
The band headlined the 2008 Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
festival, the 2008 Virgin Festival
Virgin Festival
The Virgin Fest is a rock festival held in the United States and Canada, a spin-off from the V Festival held in the UK...
, and the first Pemberton Festival
Pemberton Festival
The Pemberton Festival was a three-day summer music festival inaugurated in 2008. It was held in Pemberton, British Columbia, a village just north of popular ski resort Whistler. Produced by Live Nation Canada, the festival featured primarily rock and indie rock musicians, with a small proportion...
.
In May 2008, Nine Inch Nails announced that premium seating for all the upcoming 2008 tour shows would be offered in a pre-sale for fans who registered at the official Nine Inch Nails website. In an effort to combat ticket scalpers
Ticket resale
Ticket resale is the act of reselling tickets for admission to events. Tickets are bought from licensed sellers and are then sold for a price determined by the individual or company in possession of the tickets. Tickets sold through secondary sources may be sold for less or more than their face...
, each concert ticket will list the purchaser's legal name. The ticketing process was previously used for smaller pre-sales and was available exclusively to fan club members.
On July 26, Reznor introduced an "unplugged" portion into the live show in which the band steps to the front of the stage about an hour into the show, with Reznor on vibraphone and bassist Meldal-Johnsen playing an upright bass. The 20-minute jazzy, acoustic set is taken mostly from Ghosts I - IV. The stage show also featured mesh LED curtains that projected various visuals, ranging from falling rain to static to a ruined city, and made the band appear to be playing on "a stage that appeared to be constructed entirely out of lights." Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
later confirmed that the tour was to extend to South America and it was thought this would be the last Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
set of dates but soon after Reznor announced yet more North American dates including two dates in tourist capital Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
.
On October 8, 2008, after finishing up their last show in South America, Reznor posted on the official Nine Inch Nails website blog that Josh Freese would be leaving the band following the completion of the current tour. Shortly after, it was announced that Alessandro Cortini would also be leaving the band. On November 15, 2008, Reznor announced via the official Nine Inch Nails website that Ilan Rubin
Ilan Rubin
Ilan Rubin is an American musician, best known for being former drummer of Lostprophets & industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails during their last tour...
of Lostprophets
Lostprophets
Lostprophets is a Welsh rock band from Pontypridd, formed in 1997. Founded by vocalist Ian Watkins, bassist Mike Lewis, drummer Mike Chiplin and guitarist Lee Gaze, they were originally a side-project to hardcore punk band Public Disturbance. To date, Lostprophets have released four studio...
would be replacing Freese after his departure at the end of 2008. No replacement was announced for Cortini, and the band subsequently toured as a 4-piece without a full time keyboard player.
NIN|JA / Wave Goodbye (2009)
After a set of shows in Australia and New Zealand, Nine Inch Nails embarked on a North American tour of amphitheatres with Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...
and Street Sweeper Social Club
Street Sweeper Social Club
Street Sweeper Social Club is an American Rap Rock supergroup, formed in Los Angeles, California in 2006. The band primarily consists of guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and vocalist/emcee Boots Riley of The Coup. The band has been testing songs out during Tom Morello's...
dubbed "NIN/JA 2009". Concerts in Europe and Asia were also announced before Reznor added a series of smaller-venue shows in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The final show was on September 10, 2009.
Visual elements
Visual elements employed during Nine Inch Nails concerts have often included numerous lighting, stage and projection effects employed to accompany and augment presentation. Prior to the Fragility tour in 2000, Reznor reflected that "I’ve adopted a philosophy of the way to present Nine Inch Nails live that incorporates a theatrical element. I want it to be drama. I want my rock stars to be larger than life, you know? The Kurt CobainKurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
s of the world, I’m sick of that shit. I don’t want a gas station attendant being my hero. I grew up with Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
. I grew up with Ziggy Stardust
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1972 concept album by English musician David Bowie, which is loosely based on a story of a rock star named Ziggy Stardust. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 75 in the United States on the Billboard Music...
."
Many songs are typically accompanied with specially designed visual aids, including synchronized lighting effects and projected stock-footage montages. Early performances of the song "Hurt", for example, were accompanied by a projected montage of clouds, charred bodies, mushroom clouds, maggots, and war refugees, a performance of which is featured in the song's music video. Recent performances of the song, however, have featured less lighting effects.
Rob Sheridan
Rob Sheridan is an American graphic designer, director, and photographer best known for his extensive work with the band Nine Inch Nails....
, while Bill Viola designed a large triptych display for the Fragility tour. The images displayed on the triptych focused on storm and water imagery. And All That Could Have Been
And All that Could Have Been
And All That Could Have Been is a double album released by Nine Inch Nails in 2002. The live album contains music recorded during the Fragility v2.0 US tour in 2000; Disc 1 is a live album of their normal set list of the time, while disc B contains a studio album titled Still containing...
features an audio commentary track by Viola describing the display and his inspirations for it.
For the Live: With Teeth tour, Roy Bennett and Martin Phillips were responsible for the lighting design and stage design respectively. Bennett explained in a 2005 interview that much of the lighting was done using a series of LED lights
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
arranged in "stalactites or stalagmites [formations] to tie in to the album artwork". DLP projectors were also used to project images onto a gauze screen in front of the stage.
The visual elements of the live shows has been subject to much commentary. The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
described the Fragility tour as "one of the most outstanding light shows in memory". A reviewer from the Contra Costa Times
Contra Costa Times
The Contra Costa Times is a daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, U.S.. The paper serves Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties, in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area...
described a Live: With Teeth performance as being "heightened by just the right amount of dark purple or blue spotlights, with up-lighting from the stage front, giving the band a horror-flick feel".
Live releases
Nine Inch Nails has released one album and three videos featuring the live band. Closure, a double VHS set released in 1997, features live performances from the Self-Destruct Tour, including a performance of "Hurt" with David Bowie during the Dissonance Tour. The video has been out of print since its initial release, and all attempts to re-release the video on DVD have failed. A deluxe two-disc DVD version of Closure was delivered to Interscope RecordsInterscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that currently operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-History:...
in 2004 and indefinitely delayed from being released. However, both discs appeared on BitTorrent networks in December 2006. And All That Could Have Been
And All that Could Have Been
And All That Could Have Been is a double album released by Nine Inch Nails in 2002. The live album contains music recorded during the Fragility v2.0 US tour in 2000; Disc 1 is a live album of their normal set list of the time, while disc B contains a studio album titled Still containing...
, which features performances from the Fragility 2.0 tour, was released in 2002 as a live CD and double DVD. An easter egg
Easter egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
in the DVD version features a performance with Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...
at Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
of the songs "Starfuckers, Inc.
Starfuckers, Inc.
"Starfuckers, Inc." is a song by Nine Inch Nails.The song is released as the fourth single from the double album, The Fragile...
" and Manson's "The Beautiful People". In 2007, Nine Inch Nails released Beside You in Time
Beside You in Time
Beside You in Time is a live home video release by Nine Inch Nails, issued in Europe on February 26, 2007, and the United States on February 27, 2007. Beside You in Time is also the title of a track on the NIN album With Teeth. The video documents NIN's 2006 Live: With Teeth tour, and is available...
, featuring performances from the Live: With Teeth tour. The DVD also features rehearsal footage, music videos, and still photographs from the tour.
Live band members
The configuration of the band has evolved since first touring in 1988. Early incarnations of the band had three people playing guitarGuitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, keyboard
Musical keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
s, and samplers
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
. Later incarnations replaced the keyboards and samplers with an additional guitarist, and incarnations after that added a multi-instrumentalist whose main role was as a bassist
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
but also played guitars
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
and keyboards
Musical keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
on a number of songs. Finally, the live component of Nine Inch Nails has settled as a five-piece band since the Self Destruct tour from 1994. On the Performance 2007 tour, some songs from the Year Zero
Year Zero (album)
Year Zero is the fifth studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on April 17, 2007, by Interscope Records. Frontman Trent Reznor wrote the album's music and lyrics while touring in support of the group's previous release, With Teeth...
album were performed as a 3 piece band, featuring Reznor, keyboard player Alessandro Cortini and guitarist Aaron North, using a combination of live guitars and triggered loops. In September 2007, Reznor expressed his interest in moving away from the "rock band configuration" to explore "other ways [to] present the material in concert", though once again the 2008 incarnation consisted of five positions, but adding a variety of instruments not normally used in Nine Inch Nails such as double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, various percussion instruments, steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
, vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
and other acoustic instruments as well as sampled sounds triggered from a variety of electronic instruments. No replacement was hired for keyboard player Alessandro Cortini after he left the band in late 2008, and the 2009 live band is a four-piece, with the role of keyboard player being shared between all members.
Describing the selection process, early contributor Chris Vrenna told Gannett News "coming from the same emotional background, I feel, is more important than how well you can play your instrument. That's one reason that makes our shows more intense when we're up there ... We found people that understood that. It makes us stronger". Reznor described his selection of the earliest incarnations of the live band by saying "I'm not in the position to offer somebody a thousand dollars a week to rehearse ... So I took some young guys who were malleable, who would basically do what I want them to do but expand on it. The only context I've worked with them in so far is, 'Here are the songs, here are your parts, learn them.' "
Between major tours, live band members have on occasion contributed instrumental performances to official Nine Inch Nails releases, though creative control and direction has always been the responsibility of Reznor. Live-band members who have contributed to major Nine Inch Nails studio releases are denoted by a "#" below. Most members provide backing vocals during live performances.
Final lineup
- Trent ReznorTrent ReznorMichael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...
– lead vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, synthesizers (1988–2009)- also: tambourine, xylophone, vibraphone, saxophone
- Robin FinckRobin FinckRobin Finck is an American guitarist of Nine Inch Nails and former lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses. He is one of only a few artists who has played in two different bands listed on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock"; Nine Inch Nails and Guns N' Roses .-Career:Finck grew up in Marietta,...
# – guitars, synthesizers (1994–2000, 2008–2009) - Justin Meldal-Johnson – electric and double bass, guitars, synthesizers (2008–2009)
- Ilan RubinIlan RubinIlan Rubin is an American musician, best known for being former drummer of Lostprophets & industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails during their last tour...
– drums, keyboards (2009)
Previous members
- Ron Musarra – drums, samplers (1988)
- Nick Rushe – keyboards (1990)
- David Haymes – keyboards (1990)
- Lee Mars – keyboards (1990–1991)
- Jeff WardJeff Ward (musician)Jeff Ward was a drummer for various rock bands including Hammeron, Nine Inch Nails, Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Lard, and Low Pop Suicide....
– drums (1991) - Richard PatrickRichard PatrickRichard Patrick is an American rock musician. He is the frontman for the band Filter, a founding member of the supergroup Army of Anyone, and has served as a touring guitarist for Nine Inch Nails....
# – guitars (1989–1993) - James WoolleyJames WoolleyJames J. Woolley is a former keyboard and synthesizer player for industrial metal group Nine Inch Nails for the 1991 Lollapalooza Tour and the beginning part of the 1994 Self Destruct Tour...
– synthesizers (1991–1994) - Chris Vrenna# – keyboards, samplers (1988–1989), drums (1989–1991, 1994–1996)
- Danny LohnerDanny LohnerDaniel Patrick "Danny" Lohner , frequently known as Renholdër, is an American rock musician who plays bass guitar, electric guitar, and keyboards. He worked with Trent Reznor on numerous occasions, both with Nine Inch Nails and on the now defunct Tapeworm project...
# – bass, guitars, and synthesizers (1994–2002) - Charlie ClouserCharlie ClouserCharles Alexander "Charlie" Clouser is an American musician whose activities include playing keyboard, synth, theremin, and drums. He is known for his abilities in music programming, engineering, mixing, and remixing. He was a member of the band Nine Inch Nails 1994–2000. Before he was in Nine...
# – keyboards, synthesizers, and thereminThereminThe theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
(1994–2001) - Jerome DillonJerome DillonJerome Dillon is a professional musician, best known for his tenure as drummer with industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails from 1999-2005. After his departure, his own project, Nearly, released its debut album reminder in December 2005, along with a cd maxi-single for the song Straight to...
# – drums (1999–2005) - Alex CarapetisAlex CarapetisAlex Carapetis is a professional drummer. After studying jazz at the Adelaide Conservatorium in 2000, he moved to Sydney to further his music career. In 2004 and 2005, Carapetis toured full-time with Jimmy Barnes in Australia and New Zealand. In July 2005, Carapetis toured with Delta Goodrem on...
– drums (2005) - Aaron NorthAaron NorthAaron Wright North, born March 22, 1979 is the co-founder and former guitarist of punk band The Icarus Line, the former lead guitarist of the industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails and currently the vocalist and guitarist of the band Jubilee...
– guitars (2005–2007) - Jeordie WhiteJeordie WhiteJeordie Osbourne White , better known by his pseudonym Twiggy Ramirez , is an American musician, who is best known for being the bassist and guitarist for Marilyn Manson. He was also the bassist for A Perfect Circle, and Nine Inch Nails...
– bass, guitars, and synthesizers (2005–2007) - Josh FreeseJosh FreeseJosh Freese is an American session drummer and songwriter. He is a permanent member of A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, and Devo, having formerly played drums for Nine Inch Nails from late 2005 until late 2008, and for Guns N' Roses from mid-1998 to 2001. Freese has appeared on close to 300 records....
# – drums, marimba, drum samples (2005–2008) - Alessandro CortiniAlessandro CortiniAlessandro Cortini is an Italian musician best known for touring and recording with the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from 2004 to 2008. Currently, Cortini is also the frontman for the Los Angeles based electronic-alternative band SONOIO. In addition, he was a touring member of The...
# – keyboards, synthesizers, guitars, bass (2004–2008) - Mike GarsonMike GarsonMike Garson is an American pianist, most notable for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Corgan, Free Flight, and The Smashing Pumpkins.- Early career :...
# - piano (September 2009 at the Henry Fonda Theater for the song Just Like You ImaginedJust Like You Imagined"Just Like You Imagined" is an instrumental by Nine Inch Nails from their 1999 album The Fragile.It features Mike Garson on piano, who is known for his work with David Bowie and The Smashing Pumpkins...
)
Guest artists and collaborations
Through the years, Reznor has invited many prominent musicians on stage with his band to perform material outside the usual range of Nine Inch Nails songs:- During LollapaloozaLollapaloozaLollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
'91 Jane's AddictionJane's AddictionJane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...
members Dave NavarroDave NavarroDavid Michael "Dave" Navarro is an American guitarist who plays in the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction and cover band Camp Freddy. He has also played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Panic Channel, and many others.- Early life :...
and Eric AveryEric AveryEric Adam Avery is an American musician and is the former bass player for the rock band Jane's Addiction. Avery played in Jane's Addiction initially from 1985 to 1991, and rejoined the band in 2008 before departing again in 2010....
played guitars alongside Gibby HaynesGibby HaynesGibson Jerome "Gibby" Haynes is an American musician, radio personality, and painter, and the lead singer of the group Butthole Surfers.-Early life and career:...
and Ice-TICE-T* Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
for the last song of the band's set, "Head Like a HoleHead Like a Hole"Head Like a Hole" is a song by the American industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails. A song influenced by industrial metal group Ministry, it was released as the second single from the group's debut album Pretty Hate Machine...
". - In early 1995, Adam AntAdam AntAdam Ant is an English musician who gained popularity as the lead singer of New Wave/post-punk group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring ten UK top ten hits between 1980 and 1983, including three No.1s...
and Marco PirroniMarco PirroniMarco Francesco Andrea Pirroni is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer...
joined Nine Inch Nails on stage to perform "Physical" and other Adam and the AntsAdam and the AntsAdam and the Ants were a British rock band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The original group, which existed from 1977 to 1980, became notable as a cult band marking the transition from the late-1970s punk rock era to the post-punk and New Wave era...
songs. - During the Dissonance tour, Nine Inch Nails co-headlined with David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
. Throughout the tour, Nine Inch Nails would perform first and segue into Bowie's band. The two bands would play a mixture of Nine Inch Nails and David Bowie songs. Nine Inch Nails would eventually leave the stage and Bowie and his band would continue with their own set. - Marilyn MansonMarilyn MansonMarilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...
appeared on stage at during a concert at Madison Square GardenMadison Square GardenMadison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
in 2000 to sing "Starfuckers, Inc.Starfuckers, Inc."Starfuckers, Inc." is a song by Nine Inch Nails.The song is released as the fourth single from the double album, The Fragile...
" and "The Beautiful People". This performance is featured as an Easter Egg in the And All That Could Have BeenAnd All that Could Have BeenAnd All That Could Have Been is a double album released by Nine Inch Nails in 2002. The live album contains music recorded during the Fragility v2.0 US tour in 2000; Disc 1 is a live album of their normal set list of the time, while disc B contains a studio album titled Still containing...
DVD. - During the Live: With Teeth amphitheater tour, Nine Inch Nails and Peter MurphyPeter Murphy (musician)Peter John Murphy is an English rock vocalist. He was the vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus, and later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as Deep and Love Hysteria...
of BauhausBauhaus (band)Bauhaus was an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. The group consisted of Peter Murphy , Daniel Ash , Kevin Haskins and David J . The band was originally Bauhaus 1919 before they dropped the numerical portion within a year of formation...
performed the Pere UbuPere Ubu (band)Pere Ubu is an experimental rock music group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. Despite many long-term band members, singer David Thomas is the only constant...
song "Final SolutionFinal Solution (disambiguation)Final Solution primarily refers to the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis.Final Solution or The Final Solution may also refer to:* Final Solution , a South African drama...
", which was also a solo hit for Murphy. For the last show, they collaborated to cover Joy DivisionJoy DivisionJoy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
's "Dead Souls", which Nine Inch Nails has regularly played since 1994. Also during this tour, Reznor, Murphy, and other musicians performed four unique sets of their favorite songs on radio stations around the country. - Ben WeinmanBen WeinmanBen Weinman is an American musician, who is most notable for being the lead guitarist for the band The Dillinger Escape Plan. He is the founder and only original member remaining in the band....
and Greg PuciatoGreg PuciatoGreg Puciato is the lead singer of the band The Dillinger Escape Plan. He is known for his reckless live performances, wide vocal range, and outspoken views, having caused controversy due to both performances and interviews...
of The Dillinger Escape PlanThe Dillinger Escape PlanThe Dillinger Escape Plan is an American mathcore band from Morris Plains, New Jersey. The group originated in 1997 after the disbanding of Arcane, a hardcore punk trio consisting of Ben Weinman, Dimitri Minakakis, and Chris Pennie. The band's current line-up consists of guitarist Ben Weinman,...
joined Nine Inch Nails on stage during the encoreEncore (concert)An encore is an additional performance added to the end of a concert, from the French "encore", which means "again", "some more"; multiple encores are not uncommon. Encores originated spontaneously, when audiences would continue to applaud and demand additional performance from the artist after the...
of their performance at the Adelaide leg of the 2009 Soundwave Festival to perform WishWish (song)"Wish" is the second promotional single from Nine Inch Nails' Broken. The most successful song from the EP, "Wish" cemented Trent Reznor's image as a rage-fueled star to the public. "Wish" won the Best Metal Performance in the 1993 Grammy Awards. Reznor later joked that his epitaph should read:...
and joined again on the Perth leg with the full band. On June 15, 2009 The Dillinger Escape PlanThe Dillinger Escape PlanThe Dillinger Escape Plan is an American mathcore band from Morris Plains, New Jersey. The group originated in 1997 after the disbanding of Arcane, a hardcore punk trio consisting of Ben Weinman, Dimitri Minakakis, and Chris Pennie. The band's current line-up consists of guitarist Ben Weinman,...
joined Nine Inch Nails on stage at Bonnaroo performing "WishWish (song)"Wish" is the second promotional single from Nine Inch Nails' Broken. The most successful song from the EP, "Wish" cemented Trent Reznor's image as a rage-fueled star to the public. "Wish" won the Best Metal Performance in the 1993 Grammy Awards. Reznor later joked that his epitaph should read:...
". - During the Wave Goodbye tour in 2009 Nine Inch Nails invited many special guests to perform with them. The guest appearances included Gary NumanGary NumanGary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
, Peter Murphy, Atticus RossAtticus RossAtticus Ross is an English musician, composer and producer. Ross, along with Trent Reznor, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Social Network in 2011.-Early career:...
, Danny LohnerDanny LohnerDaniel Patrick "Danny" Lohner , frequently known as Renholdër, is an American rock musician who plays bass guitar, electric guitar, and keyboards. He worked with Trent Reznor on numerous occasions, both with Nine Inch Nails and on the now defunct Tapeworm project...
, Mike GarsonMike GarsonMike Garson is an American pianist, most notable for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Corgan, Free Flight, and The Smashing Pumpkins.- Early career :...
, Dave NavarroDave NavarroDavid Michael "Dave" Navarro is an American guitarist who plays in the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction and cover band Camp Freddy. He has also played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Panic Channel, and many others.- Early life :...
, Eric AveryEric AveryEric Adam Avery is an American musician and is the former bass player for the rock band Jane's Addiction. Avery played in Jane's Addiction initially from 1985 to 1991, and rejoined the band in 2008 before departing again in 2010....
, Saul WilliamsSaul WilliamsSaul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, The Dillinger Escape PlanThe Dillinger Escape PlanThe Dillinger Escape Plan is an American mathcore band from Morris Plains, New Jersey. The group originated in 1997 after the disbanding of Arcane, a hardcore punk trio consisting of Ben Weinman, Dimitri Minakakis, and Chris Pennie. The band's current line-up consists of guitarist Ben Weinman,...
, and HEALTHHEALTH (band)Health is an American noise rock band from Los Angeles, California. The band's 2007 release with Crystal Castles charted at position nine in the UK indie singles chart.- History :...
.