Nine Inch Nails perform at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Feb. 5, 2026. Photo: John Crawford.
Nine Inch Nails perform at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Feb. 5, 2026. Photo: John Crawford.
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s not uncommon for concertgoers to want to temporarily abandon their lives’ concerns when going to hear live music. With a Nine Inch Nails performance, like its full house show at Chase Center on Sunday, fans discovered that the band’s music can helpfully amplify or be empathetic to one’s anger and anxiety.
The San Francisco leg of the Peel It Back tour that started its North American leg last August at Oakland Arena certainly returned to the Bay Area — for the tour’s penultimate show — under remarkably changed international and even national circumstances. But NIN’s vast song catalog and broader-than-most-realize explorations of musical styles can make roughly the same set list from seven months ago feel remarkably different in different times.
NIN founder and frontman Trent Reznor has written, recorded and performed songs for more than 35 years that have helped comprise personal mixtapes and playlists alike. In that time, he’s grown from a charismatic senfant terrible to a quiet elder statesman—albeit a younger one.
While most arena- and stadium-sized artists go to a secondary stage later during a concert, that’s where the first act of Sunday’s show began with Reznor unaccompanied at a piano, singing and playing “Right Where It Belongs.” The move displayed a vulnerability that was only somewhat lessened as he was joined by others including keyboardist Atticus Ross, who’s been a band member since 2016 and is a frequent film-scoring collaborator with Reznor.
At the completion of the first three songs, prodigal drummer Josh Freese kicked off “Wish” with an impressive drum solo on the main stage as the other members walked over. Once together, Reznor — who alternated throughout the night between guitar, keyboards, mic and tambourine — briefly led the audience in a furious clap-along. A dark, translucent curtain surrounded the main bandstand and acted as both a barrier to full transparency and screens for real-time performance video and graphic projections. The first of several mini-mosh pits, largely fueld by Freese’s playing, started in front of the main stage toward the end of the second act.
Nine Inch Nails perform at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Feb. 5, 2026. Photo: Jenn Devreaux.
Returning to the smaller stage for a four-song third act, Reznor and Ross were joined by opener Boys Noize (Alexander Ridha). A square lighting rig descended from the rafters to make the smaller stage look like an enclosed space without any walls. Remixed versions of “Vessel,” from NIN’s’ 2007 album, Year Zero. and fan favorite “Closer” gave Chase Center a hedonistic club feel.
Nine Inch Nails’ early years parallel the rise of the modern rock format in the late ‘80s, and Reznor and company reminded the Chase Center audience of its string of early musical successes as the night came to a close during a final act on the main stage. The curtain was drawn, and the five-member band was finally in full view as different audience sections head-banged and slam-danced.
“The Perfect Drug,” from the Reznor-produced soundtrack to David Lynch’s underappreciated 1997 film, “Lost Highway,” started off the dark hit parade. It served as a showcase for Freese’s flawless timekeeping, including a recreation of the crisp drum-machine-sounding outro heard on the original.
With a song title that’s unfortunately as topical as ever, a cover of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans” from 1997 continued to be a poignant cover on the Peel It Back tour. The intensity of 2005’s “The Hand That Feeds,” the band’s last top-40 single, was wholly appropriate for a room-full of devoted fans who may have been a bit weary of late stage capitalism. Its emotionality set up “Head Like a Hole,” NIN’s early signature hit, masterfully.
For a certain segment of the population, “Head Like a Hole” is as much of a Gen X anthem as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” And the crowd, which included a broad demographic, responded in kind as spotlights shined on the entire room during the chorus. You could see your neighbors cathartically singing the familiar lyric — “Bow down before the one you serve/ You’re going to get what you deserve” — with a passion.
Nine Inch Nails finished with the initially dirge-like “Hurt.” Though the late Johnny Cash’s version is now better known, Reznor and his bandmates placed it back in its original musical setting as phone flashlights lit up for the first time and the band eventually took its well-deserved bows.
Earlier in the evening, Hamburg, Germany native Ridha (Boys Noize) laid out a nearly hourlong DJ set from a booth set up at the opposite end of the floor that included familiar yet tweaked elements of Depeche Mode’s classic “Enjoy the Silence” and LaTour’s “People Are Still Having Sex.”
About The Author
A South Bay native, Yoshi Kato’s first concert was John Waite at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds as an impressionable teenager. Some 2,200 concerts later, he’s a middle-aged journalist who specializes in arts and entertainment coverage on the music side and has contributed to daily newspapers, alternative weeklies, national magazines and online publications.
A South Bay native, Yoshi Kato’s first concert was John Waite at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds as an impressionable teenager. Some 2,200 concerts later, he’s a middle-aged journalist who specializes in arts and entertainment coverage on the music side and has contributed to daily newspapers, alternative weeklies, national magazines and online publications.