On September 5th, the band Nine Inch Nails performed at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh for their Peel It Back tour. This is their first tour since 2022, and they came in swinging with their performance. Great set design and striking visuals, with lasers, lights, on screen visuals and even a giant cube.

The concert began with the opener, Boys Noize, an electronic music DJ. He performed his set of club-type music for about 45 minutes. The set was split with 3 stages, the main stage, Boys Noizes DJ booth and the stage in the middle that was shrouded in curtains to look like a cube. When the lights went out, the curtains fell and a spot light was pointed at the middle stage. Trent Reznor emerged from the stage sitting at a piano. He started off playing renditions of ¨Right Where it Belongs¨, ¨Ruiner¨ and ¨Piggy¨. It began the concert with a quiet and more melancholy feel, playing piano rendition of the songs. After that he rushed over to the main stage and after it lit up, he instantly started performing high energy songs that Nine Inch Nails is famous for. Starting with ¨Wish¨, ¨March of The Pigs¨, and ¨Reptile¨. These songs drastically changed the tone of the show with the powerful and intense vocal performance from Trent Reznor. This hard-hitting energy continued for the next three songs, ¨Heresy¨, ¨Copy of A¨ and ¨Gave Up¨. The visuals during ¨Copy of A¨ being very unique having multiple copies of himself on screen all being delayed from each other. 

 After these six songs, he shifted back over to the small stage in the center of the arena and performed with the opener, Boys Noize. They then performed remixes of Nine Inch Nails popular songs such as, ¨Vessel¨, ¨Closer¨, ¨As Alive as You Need Me to Be¨, and ¨Came Back Haunted¨. The remixes were not as strong as the originals, but were still a cool performance overall. 

The last grouping of six songs was definitely the highlight for me with, ¨Mr. Self Destruct¨, ¨Hand That Feeds¨, ¨Head Like a Whole¨ and ¨Hurt¨ being the standouts. ¨Mr. Self Destruct¨ and ¨Hand That Feeds¨ are incredible from the whole band, not slowing down these fast paced songs for even a second. ¨Head Like a Whole¨ was one of the best concert moments for me, the crowd was chanting every word and it was deafening. Lastly they performed the song ¨Hurt¨ a very melancholic song that is very low energy. Trent Reznor´s performance was one of the strongest singing  performances I’ve ever seen live. It had so much emotion behind every word and it was an amazing performance. I asked Apex High School student Riley Brown for their opinions on the show, ¨The design and choreography of the show was fantastic . I loved how into it the fans and the band members were the whole time.¨ This concert will go down as an incredible show for me and thousands of other fans for years to come.