Nine Inch Nails

There's a moment when 'La Mer' hits its fourth crescendo when I realise my head is moving as if my neck has been freshly garotted. The boneless papery slither of skin keeping my head on my shoulders has turned to utter goo and my legs are twitching in a manner that a (strange) few would call dancing. The intensity that such a lilting instrumental track can inject into even the most cynical scribe is something that triple underlines why Nine Inch Nails, are one of the most life-affirming bands in the world. All the self-hate-filled bleakness, all the petty petulance and every drip of mortal doubt is consolidated into songs which have been both an escape and a rally call to a tribe of outsiders for the very best part of two decades.

It's easy to forget when listening to lesser bands that music at its apex is a soundtrack to mortality, and Trent Reznor goes beyond every pretender in helping us (the tribe, the fans, the fellow specs of humanity) escape into the void. Yet, at their most powerful, like the screech of 'Heresy' ("GOD IS DEAD! And no-one cares!") tonight, he makes the living of every moment as if it's your last fuck yeah pour through you, in both that doomed teen sense and in the transcendent every-fucking-thing-is-possible Situationist sense. Death and sex, that's all there is and tonight; Nine Inch Nail's last headline show on UK soil (save for their festival headline set at Sonisphere) is soaked in digitalized doom and punishing rock spunk.

Beyond the hyperbole shit-storm crashing against my cranium and gushing onto the page, tonight is a reminder that a live show is more than just a few guys on a stage playing their songs and that, with lights, technology and persona, you can make people feel and think things they'd never woulda done with the record tizzing in their earphones. Even for a berk like me, sometimes known as a journalist, who turns up to gigs expecting to be disappointed 98% of the time, this is a full-on gut punch. From the off, with their drummer (formerly of Lost Prophets), bashing as if they're still soundchecking, with the house lights still up full, some dude starts singing 'Now, I'm Nothing' and all around me you can hear "HOLY SHIT, SHIIIT! SHUT UP YOU CRETIN IT HAS STARTED!" And so begins the upturned-grimacing and the adventure through industrial, metal, punk drums, gunge splattered sun-blanched beats and beaten up pianos.

Just when you thought the soul-fucking audio-visual skulldigging duggery couldn't get any better (the cover of Bowie's 'I'm Afraid of Americans' through to 'The Downward Spiral' were beyond superlatives), a fascimilie of Trent wanders on stage, in the uniform of black jeans, black boots, black hair and a slightly faded black tee clinging to masculine curves. Trent looks up from his piano, grins like a four year old munching a mud pie and introduces "GARY NUMAN, everybody!" They play 'Metal' ending with a lush synth duel before dropping a 'Car(s)'-bomb on the 02 and the crowd, predictably, go frugging apeshit. Beer flies, sweat is flung and front to back people dumm-noo-noo-new-num along like they're at Guilty Pleasures. In fact, Patrick Wolf who I can see to my left is dancing like he's there, alongside the editorial team of Kerrang and every rock hack worth his poison pen lid.

Topping it off with 'Hurt' was too much but a fitting way to end a masterclass, which is easily of one of the best live shows I can remember seeing.

1. Now I'm Nothing
2. Terrible Lie
3. 1,000,000
4. Heresy
5. March of the Pigs
6. Reptile
7. The Becoming
8. I'm Afraid Of Americans (David Bowie cover)
9. Burn
10. Gave Up
11. La Mer
12. The Fragile
13. Non-Entity
14. The Big Come Down
15. The Downward Spiral
16. Wish
17. Survivalism
18. Down In It
19. Metal (w/ Gary Numan)
20. Cars (w/ Gary Numan)
21. The Hand That Feeds
22. Head Like A Hole
23. Encore: Hurt

In Photos: Nine Inch Nails @ Rockhal Luxembourg