After Weekend 1 of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, one of the most talked‑about sets was Saturday’s performance by Nine Inch Noize — the live collaboration between Nine Inch Nails and German producer Boys Noize. The project follows their recent work together on “Tron: Ares” and Boys Noize’s remix of the “Challengers” soundtrack.
The Sahara Tent crowd for Weekend 1 was solid but not especially large, which felt surprising given the legacy and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame status of Nine Inch Nails, and the global reputation Boys Noize holds in electronic music. But on Saturday of Weekend 2, the crowd was noticeably larger, spilling into the lawn areas surrounding the tent.
Nine Inch Noize featured Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Mariqueen Maandig Reznor, and Boys Noize performing within a monolithic mountain‑like structure that blended into the video screen behind them. The visuals shifted between apocalyptic skies, volcanic eruptions, dark erotic imagery of a mud‑covered couple kissing, and a greenish glow that evoked the atmosphere of a sci‑fi set reminiscent of “Alien.”
As the set opened with “Vessel,” ghoulish dancers lay scattered across the mountain in eerie poses. During “She’s Gone Away,” they began crawling upward, eventually gathering in a cluster to perform a ritualistic, prayer‑like gesture before tumbling down and climbing back up in sync with the song’s bass hits.
Songs from the 1994 album “The Downward Spiral,” including “Heresy” and “Closer,” were modernized with a sharper electronic edge while still retaining traces of their original forms, the rhythmic pulse of “Heresy,” and the melodic pattern of “Closer.” The end of “Closer” became particularly haunting as Reznor climbed to the top of the mountain, where dancers surrounded him, tugging and pulling until he descended with them into the shadows.
The collaboration worked brilliantly because it transcended a typical Nine Inch Nails performance. Instead, it became an electronic reinterpretation of the darker, rhythm‑driven corners of their catalog. This included “Parasite” from How to Destroy Angels, the side project of Reznor and Maandig Reznor, which performed at Coachella in 2013, and a cover of Soft Cell’s “Memorabilia,” which Nine Inch Nails first covered in 1994.
At its core, Nine Inch Nails has always been Reznor’s project since its founding, with Ross officially joining as a member in 2016. Reznor has long embraced remix culture, releasing albums, EPs, and singles that invite other producers to reimagine his work. Nine Inch Nails also co‑headlined an experimental tour with David Bowie in 1995, where NIN’s set didn’t simply end, it merged directly into Bowie’s for a five‑song collaborative segment.
The end of the Nine Inch Noize set ended with “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” from the “Tron: Ares” soundtrack, and it was the right way to go out, highlighting the collaboration that won a Grammy Award in February for Best Rock Song.
Thirty years later at Coachella, Reznor continues to experiment and collaborate, reimagining his own material with Boys Noize and presenting it in an alluring, ethereal Sahara Tent set that left a strong impression across both festival weekends.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Nine Inch Noize draws a larger crowd during Weekend 2 of Coachella
Reporting by Brian Blueskye, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
