Nine Inch Nails kicked off their highly-anticipated Cold And Black And Infinite tour in Phoenix last night — part of a growing trend of artists who debut theirlatest live runs in the Arizona capital — and they certainly made it a night to remember. For the first time in their career, the Trent Reznor-led outfit played their 1992, EP Broken in its entirety. What’s even more amazing? That’s how they opened the show.
Beginning with “Pinion,” the band ran through all eight tracks of Broken — including the song “Happiness In Slavery” which they hadn’t busted out in 23 years — before moving on to an eclectic array of deep cuts, fan favorites and new songs from across their career, including a cover of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid Of Americans” and for the first time ever, “This Isn’t The Place,” from the 2017 EP Add Violence.
In a recent interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Reznor talked about what inspired he and his band to perform in smaller spaces with more stripped down arrangements this go-around. “We went to see LCD Soundsystem’s show at the Palladium,” Reznor explained. “You know they could’ve played at the Forum but they chose to play a bunch nights in a smaller room… we left talking about it for a week. We like LCD but we were blown away… it just fucking felt good and it was exciting and it was right there and everybody was into it. We thought we want to do something in the world of that, where it feels like, if you get in to see the show, you get a unique experience. You are not in row a million with the security guard bitching at you.”
You can check out some of the footage from the first night of Nine Inch Nails’ Cold And Black And Infinite tour below.
