Nine Inch Nails - Manchester apollo Live Review

Nine Inch Nails

Manchester appolo feb 27th

Nine Inch Nails have been around for a while and have been producing albums since 1989. Trent Reznor is the the creative force behind N.I.N. Trent took a five year break when he was at the peak of his career and for a while took the rock star route of drugs and depression. Thankfully he has waved goodbye to that period in his life and is back on track with the music.

Supporting them on this European tour is Ladytron. Ladytron have two pretty "ladies" fronting them, they make synth pop music with a pounding rhythem section, this band are Krautrock influenced by their own omission. The vocals of the lead singer left little impact on me as her voice seemed to be lost in the sound. The band played their catchy "Seventeen" and "He took her to a movie".

I enjoyed their set and assume that their albums do them more justice than their live performance.

Nine inch nails's music is often categorised under 'Industrial', Trent seems to write some great introspective songs and dresses them with noise that makes them have a raw feel to them. He has written in the past from a "me against the world" standpoint. The Apollo fills with dry ice and the band take the stage, the first four songs are an assault on the senses with so much strobe im glad I dont have epilepsy.

Trent rushes out of the smoke to grab the mic only to vanish again into the fog. The bands set includes a lot of the older songs like Head Like A Hole, March Of the Pigs. They slow down perfectly to play "Something I Can Never Have". Trent plays "Hurt" Unacompanied on stage, he sits in front of an orange light which looks like an apocolyptic sun. Johnny Cash covered this regret tinged song so well and it is a real tribute to Trents talent.

From this slow despairing song the next is expolosive, I jump up and down until the boy in front of me ends up with his lager on his face. The band swing the spot lights around the stage and Trent enters the crowd with a spot and leaves his mic for a fan to finish the song. The guitarist was amazing to watch, in the crowd, running up and down hitting that guitar like it had offended his mother, fantastic.

Nine Inch Nails have a new album out on April 17th entitled Year Zero