While many artists have gotten back on the road since the start of the pandemic, it took a while for Nine Inch Nails to return to the stage. They did so last night, though, in Raleigh, North Carolina, for their first concert since 2018. They made the show special, too, with a couple of consecutive David Bowie covers: “I’m Afraid Of Americans” and “Fashion.”
Another noteworthy moment in the set happened right before the Bowie covers, when Nine Inch Nails performed “Every Day Is Exactly The Same” for the first time since 2006, as Setlist.fm notes.
Interestingly, NIN also covered Bowie at a 2017 concert, which, like last night’s performance, was their first after multiple years away from the stage.
Trent Reznor previously said of Bowie, “He just really started to become the best archetype for someone who has a fantastic voice and was kind of an actor pretending to be a rock star, in a way, which seemed to give him the ability to reinvent himself in ways that just felt like it would take a lot of courage to have had success at something and then throw it away and try something new. […] I still think about that dude all the time, and I still listen to him constantly. And I’m grateful that our lives intersected, and I’m grateful for, whether he knew it or not, how much he helped me in those dark times before I chose to get my sh*t together. And I can hear his voice. He penetrated through the layers of bullsh*t that I’d built around myself. I’m grateful for that.”
Check out last night’s Bowie covers above.