Words by Sam Lipkin and photographs by Mike White
Industrial legend Nine Inch Nails brought its Peel It Back tour to Duluth’s Gas South Arena Tuesday night. I had seen the sweeping praise online, checked the tour’s setlist but otherwise avoided any kind of footage to put myself in the moment for this experience as much as possible. Honestly, I can’t say a single good thing I heard was in the slightest over-rated for what I experienced.
I had only seen NIN once before, as a headliner at Shaky Knees in 2022, and at the time I was amazed at how immersive and fun the show was with the most minimal stage production I’ve ever seen from a festival headliner. It gave me a lot to think about. But the Peel It Back tour couldn’t be more opposite, with an extensive and finely detailed theatrical quality. And that left me with even more to think about.
Getting into it though, from the moment you entered the arena the stage was set. An ominously seductive red glow washed over the crowd on the floor that many people finding their seats made comments about. The glow remained as Boys Noize played an hour DJ set, with a red laser lighting aesthetic somehow caught in the past and the future. On one hand I felt like I was in a gritty ‘90s vampire club, on the other the Tron vibe was coming through very strongly. [NIN is composing the soundtrack for the upcoming film TRON: Ares, so it felt on brand.]
Boyz Noize flowed seamlessly into a curtain drop at the B stage with Trent Reznor seated at a piano, opening with a quietly haunting performance of “Right Where It Belongs.” Suddenly the arena became a very intimate setting. Band members slowly joined the stage for the following two songs before all attention was commanded to massive projections of drummer Josh Freese on the main stage curtains for a thunderous solo. This is where anything intimate about the performance jarringly jumped into loud chaos.
Strobes were flashing as the curtain came up to reveal the full band on stage, boxed in by layers of transparent fabric that created a 3D playground for visual projections and lights to dance around in. A very deftly skilled videographer moved around the stage, whose footage was projected onto the fabric in lieu of more traditional LED screens. The effect genuinely made you feel as if you were inside of a NIN music video.
After six songs, Trent Reznor made his way back to the B stage where Boyz Noize was ready to perform his remix of big hits like “Vessel” and “Closer,” newest single “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” then “Come Back Haunted.” No longer was the B stage setting intimate but transformed back into a grimy, underground club feel heavy on the pouring fog and light play. Again, the details were immaculate thanks to hard-working stage help—there was one person hand-holding a single spotlight walking around the cube stage to light Reznor in a very neatly choreographed manner.
Just watching the team assembled to get Reznor back to the main stage to finish the final leg of the show was kind of amazing. I felt like true paparazzi catching him privately moving between spaces. At this point the main stage’s transparent curtains were removed, very industrial blocks of light ran down the center of the backdrop and there was heavy use of lighting and fog. Moving into the final songs, Reznor gave a shout out to his hero David Bowie before playing “I’m Afraid of Americans,” which he stated continues to get weirder over time. I can’t agree more, Reznor.
Reznor took a moment to tell the crowd that he loves to visit our city, something he claimed as the truth as he doesn’t enjoy going to most cities. One of those reasons, he said, was because it’s where they found guitarist Robin Finck, who grew up in Marietta.
The final three songs were electrifying crowd-pleasers. “The Hand That Feeds” was supercharged in swaths of blue. “Head Like a Hole” brought almost total fog coverage that illuminated explosions of white strobes, but it was during this song that I saw the most beautiful sight. Jesus crowdsurfing to the front as Reznor sang, “Bow down before the one you serve.” All thumbs up and smiles, the man dressed as Jesus ran back into the crowd with flapping robes. Even on the main stage, it’s almost impossible for “Hurt” to not come full circle back around to that intimate feeling, only to leave everyone a little satisfyingly empty while simultaneously full from the experience.
This was a concert equal parts music and performance art—a truly unique experience worth every ounce of praise it’s received.
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