Two months before the release of their fifth full-length album, ''
Year Zero
A year zero does not exist in the Anno Domini (AD) calendar year system commonly used to number years in the Gregorian calendar (nor in its predecessor, the Julian calendar); in this system, the year is followed directly by year . However, the ...
'',
industrial rock
Industrial rock is a fusion genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. It initially originated in the 1970s, and drew influence from early experimental and industrial acts such as Cromagnon, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubaute ...
band
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN and stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor was the only permanent member of the ban ...
began a new tour, officially called Performance 2007. The tour initially started off as a 'best-of' tour (since no songs from ''Year Zero'' were played at the first few days) but later transformed into a direct ''Year Zero'' support tour.
Prior to the beginning of the tour,
Trent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and composer. He serves as the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and principal songwriter of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, whi ...
in an interview described it as an opportunity to play with the same line-up again, visiting some places the band did not play in before and revisiting music from all the different areas of Nine Inch Nails rather than focusing entirely on the new album.
The production on this tour was minimal so the heaviest setlist rotation in the band's history occurred, covering about 50 songs from all their albums.
Songlist
Band line-up
*Trent Reznor –
Lead vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of th ...
,
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...
,
keyboards,
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called " zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thou ...
,
mbira
Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...
*
Aaron North
Aaron Wright North (born March 22, 1979) is an American musician. He was the co-founder and guitarist of punk band The Icarus Line, a touring lead guitarist of industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails, and vocalist/guitarist for Jubilee. North is no ...
– Guitar, keyboards,
backup vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...
*
Jeordie White
Jeordie Osbourne White (born June 20, 1971), better known Twiggy Ramirez or simply Twiggy, is an American musician, mostly known as the former bassist and guitarist of the rock band Marilyn Manson. Previously, he was the bassist for A Perfect C ...
–
Bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...
, guitar, keyboards, backup vocals
*
Alessandro Cortini
Alessandro Cortini (born 24 May 1976) is an Italian musician best known for being the keyboard, guitar, and bass player in the industrial band Nine Inch Nails. Cortini is also the frontman for the Los Angeles-based electronic- alternative b ...
– Keyboards,
programming, guitar, bass guitar, backup vocals
*
Josh Freese
Joshua Ryan Freese (born December 25, 1972) is an American session drummer. He is the son of tuba soloist Stan Freese and the older brother of musician Jason Freese.
He is a member of the Vandals (since 1989) and Devo (since 1996), having for ...
–
Drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...
Tour legs
Europe (Spring Tour)
Notes
Two ''Year Zero'' songs made their debut on this leg ("
Survivalism
Survivalism is a social movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers) who proactively prepare for emergencies, such as natural disasters, as well as other disasters causing disruption to social order (that is, civil dis ...
" and "The Beginning of the End"), as well as a few old, never before played live songs: "Last" from ''
Broken
Broken may refer to:
Literature
* Broken (Armstrong novel), ''Broken'' (Armstrong novel), a 2006 novel by Kelley Armstrong in the ''Women of the Otherworld'' series
* Broken (Slaughter novel), ''Broken'' (Slaughter novel), a 2010 novel by Kar ...
'', "
We're in This Together" from ''
The Fragile
''The Fragile'' is the third studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released as a double album by Nothing Records and Interscope Records on September 21, 1999. It was produced by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor ...
'' and a deconstructed version of "The Fragile" from ''
Still
A still is an apparatus used to distill liquid mixtures by heating to selectively boil and then cooling to condense the vapor. A still uses the same concepts as a basic distillation apparatus, but on a much larger scale. Stills have been u ...
''. At a show in
Madrid, Spain
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, ten tracks from ''
The Downward Spiral
''The Downward Spiral'' is the second studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released on March 8, 1994 by Nothing Records in the United States and Island Records in Europe. It is a concept album detailing the self-destruc ...
'' were performed, the first seven of which were performed in their exact order on the album; three of these ("Heresy", "Ruiner", "The Becoming") returned to the setlist for the first time since the
Self-Destruct
A self-destruct is a mechanism that can cause an object to destroy itself or render itself inoperable after a predefined set of circumstances has occurred.
Self-destruct mechanisms are typically found on devices and systems where malfunction could ...
tour.
During a concert in
Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...
, a
USB flash drive
A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since fir ...
was found in a men's bathroom stall containing an intentionally leaked high-quality
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...
of the track "My Violent Heart", a song from the then-unreleased album, ''Year Zero''.
A second USB drive was found after a concert in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...
, containing the track "Me, I'm Not".
On April 18, Nine Inch Nails fans received in-game telephone-calls in which they were invited to a "resistance meeting" in Los Angeles. At the meeting, fans attended a fictional Art is Resistance meeting, and were later rewarded by an unannounced performance by Nine Inch Nails. The concert was cut short as the meeting was raided by a fictional
SWAT
In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...
team and the audience was rushed out of the building.
Support acts
* The Popo
*
Ladytron
Ladytron are a largely British electronic band formed in Liverpool in 1999. The group consists of Helen Marnie (lead vocals, synthesizers), Mira Aroyo (vocals, synthesizers), Daniel Hunt (synthesizers, guitar, vocals), and Reuben Wu (synth ...
Dates
Australia / Asia (Spring Tour)
Notes
This leg featured the same production as the previous European leg, but was more focused on ''Year Zero'', as it had 5-6 ''Year Zero'' songs in each show setlist, while previously there were no more than two. "HYPERPOWER!", "The Good Soldier", "Me, I'm Not" and "
Capital G
"Capital G" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from their fifth studio album, ''Year Zero (album), Year Zero'' (2007). It was released on June 11, 2007 as a limited-edition nine-inch vinyl in the United Kingdom, serving ...
" made their live debut on this leg.
Support act
*
Serena Maneesh
Serena-Maneesh (previously spelled Serena Maneesh, sometimes shortened to S-M) is a Norwegian alternative rock band from Oslo.
Biography
The team of musicians who each contribute to the band's sound is organized around songwriter Emil Nikolais ...
Dates
Europe (Summer / Fall tour and festival dates)
Notes
This leg featured one more song from ''Year Zero'' ("The Great Destroyer") and more extensive production, which included a traditional major visual section in the middle of the show, this time created for "Me, I'm Not", "The Great Destroyer", "Eraser" and "
Only
Only may refer to:
Music Albums
* ''Only'' (album), by Tommy Emmanuel, 2000
* ''The Only'', an EP by Dua Lipa, 2017
Songs
* "Only" (Anthrax song), 1993
* "Only" (Nine Inch Nails song), 2005
* "Only" (Nicki Minaj song), 2014
* "The Only", by S ...
". The former two were played by Reznor, North and Cortini as a 3-piece, using a combination of live guitars and pre-programmed samples triggered onstage with computers and manipulated in real time using
Ableton
Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...
software.
Support acts
* Intacto
*
Theodor Bastard
* Noisecut
*
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols are an American alternative rock band, formed in Portland, Oregon, in 1994 by singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor and guitarist Peter Holmström. They were later joined by keyboardist Zia McCabe and drummer Eric Hedford ...
*
Ladytron
Ladytron are a largely British electronic band formed in Liverpool in 1999. The group consists of Helen Marnie (lead vocals, synthesizers), Mira Aroyo (vocals, synthesizers), Daniel Hunt (synthesizers, guitar, vocals), and Reuben Wu (synth ...
*
Alec Empire
Alec or Aleck is a Scottish form of the given name Alex. It may be a diminutive of the name Alexander or a given name in its own right. Notable people with the name include:
People
*Alec Aalto (1942–2018), Finnish diplomat
* Alec Acton (1938 ...
Dates
Asia / Australia / North America
Notes
This particular leg included the band's first ever performance in China.
The ''
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The ''Honolulu Star-Bulletin'' was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii (after the ''Honolu ...
'' reported that the September 18 show in
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...
would be the last performance of the current incarnation of the Nine Inch Nails live band. Reznor told the newspaper "at this point, I want to switch things around a bit. Nine Inch Nails as a rock band configuration, we've done it and we've done it again. I see other ways I can present the material in concert, more challenging, something new. I don't want it to go stale".
In the same article, Reznor also admitted that "the idea of five guys playing loud music
ortwo hours... has got to change once finances come into play, especially performing in markets outside of the mainland U.S. I want to whittle things down".
Support acts
*
Unkle
* The Lovesong
*
White Rose Movement
Dates
References
{{Nine Inch Nails
2007 concert tours
Nine Inch Nails concert tours