Industrial Power | livemusic.fm

One of the things that will definitely make me give a gig a five star review (which doesn't happen that often!) is when the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end after just the opening number. Trent Reznor and his industrial-vehicle Nine Inch Nails may have been going 20 years now, but they have lost none of their edge.

Reznor also seems to be able to call up some serious heavy-weights for support too ... Los Angeles art-house cum glam-rock outfit Jane's Addiction (who hail from the same era and of course were on the same bill for the legendary 1st Lollapalooza festival!) filled the 'house band' slot as they liked to call it. A powerhouse of power chords and soaring high-pitched vocals filled the O2 Arena from edge to edge as we entered the damn impressive arena (I hadn't been to the O2 before!) Songs such as Ocean Size, Sex is Violent and Stop were executed with camp posturing verve - Perry Farrel dancing around like an epileptic marionette in a flouncy glam-rock shirt and spangly trousers! I have to say that I've never been 100% sure of Jane's Addiction and, on the night, I probably missed Been Caught Stealing which is both a legendary track and a personal fave. However they certainly played with ability, humour, and power ... and more importantly got the crowd going. Art-house video visuals and giant-size bordello side-drops added to the feeling these were a no ordinary support act AND in fact they were so successful in getting the crowd hot, that they duly demanded an encore (not that usual for a 'house band'!) The acapella-themed Everybody's Friend finished off the Jane's set and we headed to the bar ... bypassing the 'Ghostbuster-like' vendors with their dispensing backpacks of cold-beer!

In fact I was accompanied by an old mate of mine who's seen NiN a couple of times - we last went to their Brixton Academy gigs in 2007. This time however we were ALSO accompanied by his 16 year old son, at his first ever 'proper rock gig'... and what a treat he got! Almost from the first, Reznor wrong-footed the 'old hands'. I had been slightly disappointed at the Brixton gigs and to be honest I wasn't sure how the O2 would work with a band like Nine Inch Nails ... I assumed it was bigger or something and would dwarf the intimate, entropic sound of Reznor's musical journeys of self-destruction. The lights were still on & it sounded like a sound check as the drums started up and the crowd moved forward - I even said to the youngster with us "don't know what everyone's getting excited about, nothing happens 'til the lights go down - bloody gig virgins!" Well the joke was on me as Reznor took to the stage, and we all surged forward to listen to the understated strains of the opening number under full-arena lights. This unassuming start, with so little apparent ceremony, of course merely served to highlight the latent power of the sonic-boom that was unleashed as the first chorus kicked in - CRASH the lights snapped off and the 3 million "Killer-watt" strobes blinded us as the thrash-chords blasted out of the sound rig. Fuck me it was cool! Reznor's intentions were clear - power, aggression & that curious feral quality of his music, strained to fill every cubic metre of the O2 arena.

And it didn't stop there - as the song reached both its musical and emotional crescendo, Reznor kicked over the organ stand and after a few more power-chords stalked off the stage throwing the guitar angrily into the strobing depths at the back... the hairs on back of my neck were well and truly on end by now! Fucking hell I thought - where do you go when you open like that! The 16 year old in our group just stood there agog, but to be honest, I doubt my mate and I looked much different! Somehow Reznor maintained the energy, passion and uncompromising intensity throughout the next half-dozen numbers or so ... classic songs such as Piggy, Heresy, Wish and Reptilian summoned up a sort of industrial nightmare lullaby of angst-ridden late 20th century life. Even the sound-mixing engineer couldn't maintain his cool, took off his sweat-soaked shirt, and was pogo-ing away in his enclosure. It was to be frank, pretty extra-ordinary. Even more reflective songs, such as La Mer, had a dissonant potency about them. The mood only really lifted when Reznor's collaborative homage to Bowie surfaced and he played I'm afraid of Americans. This was swiftly followed by a somewhat more obvious paying of respect to Gary Numan, who guested vocals on Down In It ... the first NiN single released way back in 1989. Inevitably the proto-industrial electro anthem In Cars followed and Reznor had paid his dues to two of his musical influences and erstwhile mentors. Newer material from With teeth, such as The Hand That Feeds proved that Reznor still had plenty to offer in terms of insightful observations and sheer raw power ... by the time we'd got to the logical conclusion of Head Like A Hole, the crowd was once more at a collective fever pitch. A guy just in front of me - who must have been in his mid-thirties at least - joined the sound-engineer in pogo-ing on the side of his enclosure, screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs (as did most of us), thereby providing his own accompaniment to the classic paean of urban fin-de-siecle existential rage. After a brief shell-shocked lull, the familiar piano chords of Hurt signified both the encore and a sort of coda to the evening's exhausting emotional outpourings. The crowd duly accompanied once more, giving a hymnal quality as their voices echoed around the near-perfect acoustics of the arena. The cathartic, vitriolic anger had passed, we were sated, satisfied and replete ... ready once more to venture back into the reality outside the Dome; back to the strange little 21st century lives that we'd all sang rage-fuelled laments against for the past 90 minutes.

All in all it was a blinder of a gig. Even Reznor himself was taken aback by the vehemence of the crowd's support, not only did most go along for the ride but, in the words of one of the tracks off The Fragile, We're in this Together ... tonight he definitely had company! He was the most emphatic I've ever heard him at the end of the gig and sounded genuinely touched by the experience - and he said as much. Usually you get very little more than 'Thanks' from Reznor. One thing that I couldn't get out of my mind though ... this was the same stage that old Mikey Jackson would have had to go back to, had he ever played the greatest gigs that never were. Did that somehow contribute to the tsunami of intensity that accompanied this gig? Did the arena itself somehow focus on Reznor and summon up all the disappointment and unfulfilled intentions of a 20th Century icon into that one night? I guess that's probably going too far ... but one thing's for sure, the NiN gig really was a one off and I doubt it could be repeated. Could Jackson really have pulled off fifty more of the same? I doubt even at the height of his flawed demi-godlike powers he could have done that to be honest ... and in the end he ended up a victim of the very modern-day demons that Reznor so conclusively and convincingly exorcises through his music.

Photo Credit: Stefan Kraft @ Enamic