Nine Inch Nails at Bridgestone Arena, 9/6/2025
There are shows and then THERE. ARE. SHOWS. Nine Inch Nails’ return to Bridgestone Arena Saturday night was the latter, in all caps. An airtight expression of tension and release in cinematic proportions, it started minimal on one stage and bloomed maximal on another, introducing new elements both sonic and visual with seamless fluidity. Every detail was a decisive artistic choice, eliciting a range of emotions and giving fans everything they could want and nothing they didn’t need.
That was clear from the first note of the opening “Right Where It Belongs,” which came as a surprise not just because it landed literal seconds after the last throb of German-Iraqi DJ and NIN collaborator Boys Noize’s opening set reverberated through the arena, forgoing the logistical formality of an intermission. It was jarring because it came not from a buzzing guitar, harsh syntheziser or screaming voice, but from a piano. Indeed, kicking things off more like a Nashville writers’ round than an industrial arena-rock spectacle, Trent Reznor performed the tense With Teeth ballad sitting behind a keyboard, alone, simply lit on a B stage smaller than a boxing ring on the arena floor.
This was the fourth time in 20 years that fearless — and at 60, seemingly ageless — Nine Inch Nails master planner Reznor and his rotating murderers’ row of musical NINjas have haunted the home of the Nashville Predators. The first three (in 2005, 2008 and 2013) were embarrassingly under-attended. But if Saturday night’s show wasn’t sold out it, was damn near close. Perhaps that was on Reznor’s mind when “Right Where It Belongs” ended with a tacked-on final verse from The Fragile favorite “Somewhat Damaged,” closing with: “Everything you swore would never change is different now / Like you said, you and me make it through / Didn’t quite / Fell apart / Where the fuck were you?”
Reznor crooned the lines with a whisper, in Bluebird Cafe-worthy nearly pin-drop silence, punctuated of course by the scattered hollers of some over-excited fan boys and girls. They were taking the opportunity they’ve been waiting decades for to declare their love for the man who became the Elvis of goth-industrial when he popularized the genre 30-plus years ago. But instead of unceremoniously keeling over on the crapper in his 40s and becoming a tacky memory, Reznor has carried on with dedicated, relentless artistic ambition that would’ve made his sonic and visionary Jedi Master David Bowie proud.
In keeping with the status he’s now long held as a torchbearer of art rock, Reznor took a similar approach to introducing the show as Talking Heads’ David Byrne in 1984’s bar-setting concert film Stop Making Sense. He appeared on a minimal stage as bandmates Atticus Ross (keyboards) and Alessandro Cortini (keyboards, bass) strolled like humble prizefighters to the ring one at a time. Meanwhile, Reznor, still in piano-man form, sang a stripped-back “Ruiner” before closing the first of two sets on the smaller of two stages with a reworked, raved-out “Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now).”
Nine Inch Nails at Bridgestone Arena, 9/6/2025
The ensemble could’ve kept the crowd rapt with club-ready remixes from the B stage all night. Instead they made their way through the crowd to the still-curtained main stage, upon which appeared a projection of Josh Freese, a legend with a place on the Mount Rushmore of rock stage and session drummers. Just last month — and with only one day of rehearsal — he made a triumphant return to NIN after a 17-year absence. In an alt-rock Days of Our Lives moment, Freese took over for Ilan Rubin, who replaced Freese in 2009 but left the band a week before this tour to take Freese’s former gig in Foo Fighters.
As the rising curtain revealed Reznor and company in their full glory — now joined by longtime guitarist Robin Finck — for the heavy-artillery act of the show, one couldn’t help but wonder how stoked Freese must’ve been to be playing the adrenochrome-propelled industrial-metal bangers like “Wish” and the “March of the Pigs” than tired dad-rock torch ballads like “Times Like These” and “Best of You.”
At this point, the lighting directors and production managers — clearly the swingin’ dick Josh Freeses of their jobs — got to flex their chops, pairing sinister show-stoppers like “Reptile” and “Copy of A” with a 4-D production of projections on translucent sheets surrounding the band, embedding them in electric imagery.
In a post on his official Instagram account, an inspired Jack White, who attended Saturday’s show, cited “Copy of A” and praised the entire production. “I was enthralled to attend the NIN show in Nashville yesterday with family and friends, not only for the intense and beautiful music but the best lighting that I've ever seen in a show,” he wrote. “Very inspiring.”
Yeah, hard agree on that.
Nine Inch Nails at Bridgestone Arena, 9/6/2025
The band saved its NIN hit (and anthem for animal lovers everywhere) “Closer” for the smaller B stage, where Boys Noize joined the trio of Reznor, Ross and Cortini, chopping and screwing the Downward Spiral classic with a remix that still satisfied where it could’ve confused less adventure-ready audiences. “Closer” has more hooks than a jugline fisherman, and this wrecking crew found new ways to milk all of them in a presentation that, on brand with NIN’s evolution, found an infectious groove between sleaze and grace.
The hits kept coming following another seamless stage-to-stage transition. During “Perfect Drug,” Freese went full-on biomechanical, turning out a drum ’n’ bass solo that sounded like a drum machine losing a fight with a Gatling gun. “The Hand That Feeds” and “Head Like a Hole” grooved with the grind of a warehouse dance party.
The idea that any NIN fan (casual or die-hard) with eyes, ears and a pulse could find any flaw with this show is about as inconceivable as a second Trump presidency once seemed. But Americans can be stupid, scary monsters. On that note, perhaps the one minor miss was that the band didn’t treat Nashville to a timely take on the increasingly timeless Bowie-Reznor collab “I’m Afraid of Americans,” a song that’s popped up at most of the shows on this tour. But it’s worth noting that in its place they played the 1994 Natural Born Killers soundtrack standout “Burn,” a song about what becomes of nihilistic, narcissistic, sociopathic reactionaries when they feel rejected — they want to watch the world burn.
And, well, a nihilistic, narcissistic, reactionary sociopath is currently ruling the world, and it is very much on fire. Perhaps that explains why, for an arena filled with mostly Gen-Xers and aging millennials, it still felt oddly age-appropriate and just as (if not more) cathartic shouting out the hopeless, godforsaken choruses to ’90s teen-angst mixtape staples like “Gave Up” and “Heresy” in 2025 as it did in 1995, when things were still kind of good. Nothing kicks a hole in the head of nostalgia quite like songs about fucked-up people fucking up a fucked-up world resonating with greater frequency 30 years on.
Reznor chose telepathy over stage banter for communicating with the crowd, breaking the fourth wall only one time over the course of 90 minutes, when he paused to introduce the band. But the music, and his presentation of it, still spoke volumes to his people. He was in literal tears belting out “I would find a way,” the closing line of “Hurt,” which of course closed the show, no encore break. This audience felt that shit, perhaps more in an aging Johnny Cash way than an angsty teenage nostalgia way — but just as raw, just as primal. This is how a legacy artist fights complacency and forges new frontiers, not just by retaining their power from the past, but also by finding new powers and giving new meaning. When there was one set of footprints, that’s when the music carried you. Thousands of fans filled Bridgestone Saturday night, but only one set of footprints trailed out into the nightmare hellscape of Lower Broad.
