Nine Inch Nails stopped at Santa Barbara Bowl on Tuesday for a sold-out show featuring support from experimental electronic rocker Yves Tumor. The show was one of the few 2022 tour dates NIN announced earlier this year, coming at the tail-end of a sparse year for the Trent Reznor-led group.
Yves Tumor kicked off the evening with a set culled from their most recent releases, 2021’s The Asymptotical World EP and 2020’s Heaven to a Tortured Mind, with some unreleased songs mixed in.
Nine Inch Nails then claimed the stage for a 19-song set spanning the industrial rock pioneers’ 30-year career. Opening with “Mr. Self Destruct”, off of 1994’s The Downward Spiral EP, they played several fan favorites to please the crowd of 4,500 including “Closer”, “The Perfect Drug”, “The Hand That Feeds”, and a set-closing “Head Like a Hole”. The band also included two consecutive pig-related songs, “March of the Pigs” and “Piggy”, two songs from the ambient-inspired The Fragile double album, “The Frail” and “The Wretched”, and a rendition of David Bowie‘s “I’m Afraid of Americans”.
For the encore, Nine Inch Nails offered two songs starting with “Even Deeper”, one more song off The Fragile, and finishing with “Hurt”.
View fan-shot videos and a gallery of photos from Nine Inch Nails and Yves Tumor at Santa Barbara Bowl courtesy of photographer Matthew Rea below.
Nine Inch Nails have only two headlining shows left this year, one tonight, Thursday, September 15th at Zappos Theater in Las Vegas, NV, and one on September 24th at Blossom Music Center in Cleveland, OH, in addition to appearances at Primavera Sound L.A., Riot Fest, Louder Than Life, and Joe Walsh‘s VetsAid. They will also participate in Nine Inch Nails Fan Day at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH on September 23rd, which will feature a live Q&A with the band. For more information and tickets, visit the band’s website.
Setlist: Nine Inch Nails | Santa Barbara Bowl | Santa Barbara, CA | 9/13/22
Set: Mr. Self Destruct, Wish, Last, March of the Pigs, Piggy, The Lovers, The Frail, The Wretched, Reptile, God Break Down the Door, Copy of A, Closer (with “The Only Time” breakdown), This Isn’t the Place, Heresy, The Perfect Drug, I’m Afraid of Americans (David Bowie), Gave Up, The Hand That Feeds, Head Like a Hole
Encore: Even Deeper (preceded by band introductions), Hurt
Note: “Echoplex” and “Survivalism” were listed on the printed setlist before “Even Deeper”, but not played.
Setlist: Yves Tumor | Santa Barbara Bowl | Santa Barbara, CA | 9/13/22
Set: Jackie, Gospel for a New Century, Medicine Burn, Operator (with “Be Aggressive” chant), Cntra, Kerosene!, Romanticist, Dream Palette, Mtora, …And Loyalty Is a Nuisance Child, Secrecy Is Incredibly Important to the Both of Them
