Review: 6 ways Nine Inch Nails’ St. Paul concert hurt so good

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 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 singalong 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.

2. The first thundering crashes by drummer Josh Freese. After a couple more slow-building songs, the rhythms finally kicked into overdrive on the main stage for the fourth song, “Wish.” And that’s when Twin Cities fans were finally reminded again of the rock-solid but wild-abandon-sounding skills of the Minnesota-rooted Freese, whose grandfather was a school band teacher in Edina, and who has toured with local legend Paul Westerberg and his reunited Replacements. Last seen in town with the Foo Fighters — who then went and hired NIN’s most recent drummer, Ilan Rubin — Freese previously played with NIN in the mid-2000s and never should have left.

3. The deep dive into “The Downward Spiral.” Before and after “Wish,” the band fulfilled many a fan’s wish early in the set and delved into 1994’s groundbreaking double album, starting with “Ruiner” and peaking with “March of the Pigs” — yes, another hard-smashing showpiece for Freese. “Reptile” was also delivered with ultra-seething vocals made extra dark from behind a mesh wraparound curtain with video imagery splashed across it like a concert within a movie.

4. The shadow play during “Copy of A.” This standout from the band’s last full album, 2013’s “Hesitation Marks,” also benefited from the tour’s innovative production. Multiple video angles of Reznor appeared in various forms all across the mesh curtain, so it looked like there was an army of him singing.

5. The cover of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans.” Reznor first covered this darkly sardonic classic by his hero and friend when Bowie was still alive. Read into his decision to bring it back in the year 2025 however you want, but it sounded undeniably alive and relevant Sunday.