Back To Shrines ABOUT NIN+ME TRENT RECS GALLERY

Welcome to my NIN shrine! Like many others I too heard March of the Pigs at aged 12 and never moved on. (I can’t even claim the experience of seeing 90s Trent Reznor and thinking “wow I wish that was me” because it turns out that’s more common than you’d think) I don’t quite know what this section is going to look like yet but I’m excited to add to it.

For most people The Downward Spiral is Nine Inch Nails. It’s often most people’s introduction to NIN and is hailed as one of the most important albums of the 90s. I personally heard this album for the first time when I was a very depressed teenager so its themes of self loathing, rage, depersonalisation and despair resonated a lot, but I’m sure perfectly happy people can enjoy The Downward Spiral as well (as a mostly happy adult I can confim this is the case) It has songs you might recognise – Hurt and Closer (AKA Johnny Cash and I Wanna Fuck You Like an Animal) which makes it a good starting point. It has a good mix of “aggressive” sounding songs (Mr. Self Destruct, March of the Pigs, Big Man With a Gun, Ruiner, Heresy) and some “quieter” songs (Piggy, A Warm Place, Closer, Hurt) along with a some that I’d class as a combination of the two (Reptile, The Becoming, I Do Not Want This, Eraser, The Downward Spiral) So I think it’s a good representation of the variety that you can find on a NIN album.

When we finally enter the arena after picking up some merch, we realise we’re right next to The Cube ™. We also realise that the music playing is actually Boys Noize doing his set on another stage (C stage?) He was fine but I did spend the whole time waiting for the beat to drop. When it finally did the cube fell to reveal Trent Reznor sat at the piano playing A Minute to Breathe, alone. I’ve been to a lot of gigs in my life and I’ve never seen a crowd stand there, awestruck, in silence before. He then goes into Thats What I Get (first performance since 1991) then is joined by Atticus Ross and Alessandro Cortini for The Fragile. Now I am not really a ballad man, you can count the amount of ballads I actively choose to listen to on one hand, but as you can see below I am grinning like an idiot.



After starting Eraser Robin Finck and Ilan Rubin on appear on the main (non cube - I believe everyone’s calling it the ‘unpeeled’ stage?) as Trent, Atticus and Alessandro climb down from the cube and walk through the crowd to join them. When they launch into Wish my husband and friend are seriously considering joining the pit but are held back by their various injuries from Outbreak a few days before. March of the Pigs kicks off an even bigger pit and I’m having the absolute time of my life.



The lights go green and the mechanical clunk comes in and I’m losing my mind because I’m about to hear my favourite NIN song. I’ve always thought that hearing Reptile live must feel like getting hit over the head with a sheet of corrugated metal (positive, complimentary) and I was correct. The lights also looked fucking insane, for the first time ever at a gig my 5ft tall ass can actually see everything because it’s so all encompassing. It’s at this point I start clinging to the barrier next to me because I’m starting to feel slightly overwhelmed.

As gave up ends Boys Noize appears on the cube stage as Trent and Atticus make their way through the crowd to join him. This is the first time I notice how much Trent is smiling and that makes me very happy. But then THEN they play Vessel. They’re playing Vessel. My beloved Year Zero mentioned and acknowledged by Nine Inch Nails in 2025. This is an EDM club remix of Vessel and it’s absolutely amazing, this leads into remixes of Branches/Bones and Came Back Haunted. This was one of my favourite parts of the show and I am currently hunting down the best audio rips of these three songs I can find because I want to listen to them all the time. When Trent and Atticus walked down into the crowd to switch stages again I had that moment of “oh shit that’s Trent Reznor from my CDs, my bedroom wall posters growing up and my computer”. I also noticed that Trent waited for Atticus to go through the crowd first before following him which I thought was funny as someone who never wants to be the one walking infront.

When the band reconvened on the “Peeled” main stage they played Somewhat Damaged. At this point in the gig every song played is better than the last and it’s getting a bit absurd - Less Than into Heresy into SURVIVALISM (Two Year Zero songs when I thought I’d get none at all? Maybe the vinyl rerelease is actually coming soon and my 9 year wait wasn’t for nothing??) but then The Perfect Drug riff starts and I turn to look at my friend and he looks like his head is going to explode scanners style. This continues with Head Like a Hole and then of course they end on Hurt and I may have cried a little.

Anyway, this was the best gig I’ve ever been to (sorry Murderdolls in 2010) I’m still following the tour and I still think we got one of the best setlists. If we get another tour I will definitely get tickets to more than one show if I’m able to.

When we’re filing out my husband says I haven’t blinked for the past hour and I look like I’m on pills and to be honest I felt a bit like I was. I’ve loved NIN since I was 12 and I turn 30 this year (I’m the same age Trent was when The Downward Spiral came out??) they’ve been there through a lot of important times in my life - good, bad and very bad. So finally getting to see them live has filled some sort of void I didn’t even know was there. Maybe I was right in booking my leave as religious holiday after all.

to mark this event forever I got my little piggy tattoo