********************************** 
The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon) 

April 23, 1994 Saturday 
FOURTH Edition 

NINE INCH NAILS DRIVES CROWD WILD 

BYLINE: FIONA MARTIN, Special Writer, The Oregonian < 

SECTION: ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT; Pg. C01 

LENGTH: 723 words 

Saturday, April 23, 1994 
NINE INCH NAILS DRIVES CROWD WILD 
Crashing, introspective songs howl with an inner torment 
Nine Inch Nails lived up to great expectations Thursday night at La
Luna, delivering another landmark performance of writhing, dark
industrial dance music. 

At its most blindingly transcendent moments, the band -- which also
wrenched out Portland's most intense concert experience of 1990 --
achieved blindingly transcendent moments and threatened psychotic
excess with a cyclone of sampled sounds, a thousand electronic howling
voices, frantic guitars and larger-than-life drums. 

Lead singer Trent Reznor, half visible in the sweating fog onstage,
slashed at the veil between heaven and hell with his perversely
introspective lyrics. 

For recording purposes, Reznor is Nine Inch Nails. On tour, he
fronts what is now a five-piece band: two guitarists, a keyboard
technician and a drummer. The pale singer/songwriter makes crashing,
disturbing, believable rock 'n' roll out of what easily could be
ridiculously pretentious gothic dreck. 

Reznor didn't invent the kind of gloomy, highly sampled electronic
music that is equal parts heavy-metal thunder, cheesy new wave dance
filigree, art rock twists and industrial noise. But he's taken the
entire industrial dance genre much further than flagship Ministry and a
whole fleet of like-sounding acts, on the Wax Trax label, that rock
local dance clubs on alternative nights. 

``The Downward Spiral,'' the Nails' second full-length album, came
out last month, 3 1/2 years after the catchy debut ``Pretty Hate
Machine.'' Amazingly, the complex, inaccessible crush of ``Spiral'' was
the second-best-selling album in the country the week it debuted, and
dates on the band's current tour are selling out in minutes. 

If Nirvana's success vindicated the underappreciated punk rock
likes of Black Flag and Bad Brains, the rise of Nine Inch Nails at last
avenges the lamentably obscure careers of such gothic new wavers as Joy
Division and industrial techno-musicians as Foetus. 

At first glance the truckload of speaker stacks on the specially
expanded stage at La Luna seemed excessive. But the oversize system
superbly transmitted the Nails' disturbing power and boosted Reznor's
vocals to crystal-clear godhead. 

In a set divided equally between the two albums, ``The Only Time''
from ``Pretty Hate Machine'' stood out. The song demonstrated the
band's dynamic potential, layering quirky new-wave melody over howling,
hard-riff rock verses and the infectious chorus repeating ``maybe I'm
all messed up.'' 

On a converted, perverted and transmogrified version of ``Get Down
Make Love,'' the band simultaneously disco-fied and metalized the Queen
anthem with odd cowbell percussion elements from drummer Chris Vrenna,
the only permanent band member other than Reznor. 

After topping off a 13-song set with the familiar territory of
``Head Like a Hole,'' the band encored with a version of Joy Division's
``Dead Souls,'' which showcased the meatiest, yearning guitar parts of
the evening. 

In the 1990 Portland show, Reznor writhed cathartically on the
stage as he vented his obsessions with sex and lies. Thursday night, he
transmitted the same inner torment with a comparatively still
performance. 

Seemingly removed and aloof at the beginning of the set, by the
ninth tune Reznor had no choice but to acknowledge the ecstatic crowd
energy. 

``You guys are all right,'' he said grudgingly, and then boosted
Portland egos by questioning the virility of the in-their-seats crowd
in Seattle on Wednesday night. 

Before him, a flailing wasteland of bodies vibrated hope and
hopelessness, agitating for sweet noise's sake all the way to the back
of the house. Neither Reznor nor his audience truly makes any kind of
statement. He muses on dark, pathological preoccupations. The audience
responds with a movement of solidarity and recklessness out of
resilient joy and despair. 

If you never thought five guys onstage with guitars and
synthesizers could reach beyond all the tired clichés and renew your
flagging faith in rock 'n' roll, Nine Inch Nails will prove you wrong.
If you have to give the absurd alternative arena Lollapalooza credit
for something positive, it is that it had a hand in making Nine Inch
Nails big.