Click for photo gallery: NIN at Bridgestone Arena. (photo: Baldur Bragson)
It's been nearly five years since Nine Inch Nails have performed in Nashville - but their last gig in Music City was one to remember. The industrial/electronic rock mainstays' spectacle-filled 2008 gig at Bridgestone Arena (then the Sommet Center) featured an array of interactive visuals and a massive video touchscreen as a backdrop.
Trent Reznor
The band is now on its first tour since 2009 and returns to Bridgestone on Tuesday. Frontman Trent Reznor tells The Tennessean their new live production was a year in the making - a year marked by "tons of effort and pulling out hair and screaming at people and frustration, and hopefully glory at the end of it."
Speaking of glory, some fans and observers were thrown for a loop earlier this year upon the release of "Everything," a song from the band's new album, "Hesitation Marks."
Reznor - whose best-known tunes include the raging "Head Like a Hole" and "Closer" - sounded newly triumphant, belting a major-key melody with a chipper rock rhythm behind him. It even inspired some fans to make their own music videos for the tune - one featured computer graphics of Reznor riding a flying unicorn through space. According to Reznor, the vibe of "Everything" and "Hesitation Marks" is a bit more complex.
"In this age of news aggregation and re-blogging and page hit link-bait journalism that we find ourselves in, my life gets distilled down to 'Oscar winner, father of two, happily married, dot dot dot,'" he says. "There's a song with a major chord in it, and here's my 'happy' album. That one puzzles me a bit...I don't see this album as some celebration of positivity."
But another recent news item made Reznor smile - a widely circulated report of the band's performance at the "Made In America" festival in September. The report initially said the band's concert featured a cover of the Johnny Cash song, "Hurt" - but that song is a Nine Inch Nails original, from their 1994 album "The Downward Spiral." Cash's acclaimed cover of the song was featured on his final album in 2002 and introduced the song to new audiences.
"I snickered a little when I saw that one," Reznor said. "No offense taken. It was an honest mistake. (Cash) did a great version of it...It was very flattering that someone who's an A+ songwriter would choose to cover your song."
Nine Inch Nails play Bridgestone Arena on Tue., October 22, 2013. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $39.65-$99.
