About 90 minutes into the 115-minute set, Trent Reznor said to the crowd that when he was thinking about taking Nine Inch Nails out on tour again, he wasn’t sure if people would still care. Lol. Lmao, even. Both nights of the show were sold out at Chicago’s United Center, and one imagines most nights in most cities were also sold out. Nine Inch Nails’ music means a lot of things to an awful lot of people, so it was not a surprise at all to see this sort of response from the public.
The show started on the “B” stage, in the round. It was just Trent solo at a keyboard. He performed a medley of sorts, “Right Where It Belongs” and “Somewhat Damaged” blended into one song. Suddenly the name of the tour - “Peel It Back” - began to make sense. Usually the intensity of the music is what is unforgiving for Nine Inch Nails; this time it was the restraint. The rest of the band — minus drummer Josh Freese — joined in for the next two songs. Hauntingly beautiful would be a good way to describe them.
A black-and-white video of Freese was projected onto the see-through shroud surrounding the stage as the band made their way back to the main stage. Once they were back, Freese was off like a madman as they kicked into “Wish.” It was an excellent one-two punch into “March of the Pigs,” with guitars that sounded more like jet engines.
“Copy of A,” from 2013’s mostly forgotten Hesitation Marks — I personally haven’t heard or thought of that song in years — was a mid-set highlight. The music sounded mostly like the album cut, but the multiple Trents projected on that shroud made for some stunning visuals. I’ve seen NIN twice previously (2000; 2006) and it has never not been a visually interesting show. The 2025 version was no different.
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From there it was back to the B-stage, this time with opener Boys Noize. (The less said about them, the better.) This mini-set featured some deep cuts and a couple of classics (“Closer,” “Sin”) all gussied up to sound like demented MTV Party to Go Remixes. Yes, NIN has always had electronics heavy featured in the music, and yes, their songs, particularly “Closer,” have always been danceable, but this reimagining fell completely flat for me.
The last third of the set, all on the main stage, featured some great tunes. Late-period standout “Less Than” featured a somewhat tepid reaction from the crowd, but I thought it was excellent. “The Perfect Drug” had a dazzling light show to go along with the delectably noisy guitars and an amazing Freese drum solo to close it out. His playing was excellent all night, and I think he was the most outstanding of all the players on stage.
The last two songs of the show were probably the two heaviest. “Head Like A Hole” hit you in the head like a ton of bricks, buzz guitars and all, and featured probably the greatest crowd participation. Reznor didn’t even need to sing the chorus, because the crowd carried it with no problem. “Hurt” was still as emotionally devastating as it was 30 years ago (!!!). The line “You are someone else / I am still right here,” with Reznor bathed in spotlight, held some significance considering all he’s been through. (And, quite frankly, what all of us in the crowd have been through as well.)
Overall, I thought the performance was pretty good. The stripped-down versions were fine, the remixes not so much. The arrangements didn’t vary all that much from the studio versions, though they seemed noisier and more distorted. (This could also be a result of the sound mix, which I thought was kind of muddy, though that could also be the acoustics of the United Center.)
Trent Reznor is a 60-year-old man that doesn’t seem like he’s 60 - his voice doesn't sound like it's aged much at all, and Nine Inch Nails in 2025 showed no signs of slowing down. Even if the tours seem like they are fewer and further between, there is no reason to expect a NIN show to be anything other than excellent.
