It was a question Minnesota music fans had been waiting to hear Trent Reznor sing to them for 12 fairly ugly years.
“Doesn’t it make you feel better?” the Nine Inch Nails frontman asked five songs into his band’s raging set Sunday night at Xcel Energy Center.
Like a hard-rock answer to an actor breaking down the fourth wall, Reznor seemed to be talking directly to the 15,000-plus fans when he coolly bellowed that iconic line between loud blasts of manic guitars and vein-popping howls during “March of the Pigs.”
Yes, the noise and the mayhem up to that point did indeed feel good. Thanks for asking, Trent. And it would feel even better by show’s end, despite the 95-minute performance just seeming to get angrier, louder, uglier and timelier as it raged on.
The 95-minute set wasn’t entirely a pummeling, all-roar affair. A midshow montage on the small B-stage at the center of the arena with the night’s opening act Boys Noize turned it into a mini electronic-dance rave, highlighted by an extra-breathy version of the 1994 megahit “Closer” as well as the vibrant new song “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” (from the upcoming “Tron: Ares” soundtrack). Later on the main stage, “The Perfect Drug” came off as a buoyant sing-along with a playfully jittery drum solo.
However, Sunday’s concert was at its best when NIN was at its heaviest, angstiest and ugliest. Reznor, 60, conspicuously hasn’t mellowed after turning more to Oscar-winning soundtrack scoring in the 12-year gap between Twin Cities performances. For whatever reasons — the news of the day offers plenty to guess from — he even seemed to be as heavily invested as ever in delivering his band’s angst-ridden, venomously pessimistic ’90s- and ‘00s-era classics.
Here are the standout moments in Sunday’s set when the music felt the harshest or stung the most.
**1\. Reznor’s solo delivery of “Right Where It Belongs.”** A surprising start to NIN’s set, Reznor appeared suddenly on the B-stage at a piano and launched right into this 2005 tune just seconds after German electronic producer Boys Noize (Alexander Ridha) finished his opening set. There was no break. Maybe even more of a surprise was this quiet, stark choice of opening song, with Reznor hushing the crowd with gut-punching lines such as, “See the animal in his cage that you built.”