from Oakland Press:
Published Monday August 25 2008
By GARY GRAFF
Never a visual slouch, Trent Reznor -- the creator of and force behind nin -- surpassed his previously high standards with his latest show, a jaw-droppingly inventive trip of the light fantastic that ranks in a league with past spectacles by Pink Floyd, U2 and Peter Gabriel, among others. For two-and-a-quarter hours the five-piece group toured nin's seven studio albums with fierce dexterity, but it doesn't slight the playing to consider it mostly as a soundtrack to the sights that accompanied the songs.
The entire evening, in fact, was an exercise in each number designed to surpass the others. Strobe effects from a rear-stage light wall helped the group charge into "1,000,000," while the same rig pulsated with a rolling, wavey quality during "March of the Pigs." Rich blues dressed up "Discipline;" flaming reds accompanied "Closer" and "Terrible Lie."
All of that was driven by more than two dozen songs from nin's angst-filled industrial rock canon, which Reznor has wrested from the major label world and his turned into his own concern this year with "Ghosts I-IV" and "The Slip." nin played six songs from the latter as well as four of the "Ghosts" pieces -- as well as an airy, jazzy, "Ghosts"-style treatment of 1994's "Piggy" (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)." "The Frail" provided a gentle, piano-based lead-in to "The Wretched," while "Closer" sounded phatter than ever and the trio of "Only," "The Hand That Feeds" and "Head Like a Hole" brought the main set to a driving conclusion.
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