Credit: Found On Internet

I’ve been avoiding seeing Nine Inch Nails for seven years. Ever since they pulled out of a headline slot at the abortive Lost Weekend, way back in 2000. This was allegedly because their then-drummer, Jerome Dillon, was ill, Of course, the rumour mill was rife that Trent Reznor had in fact OD’d. It’s not as if the world’s leading industrial band wouldn’t have a drum machine or a spare drum tech to fill in.

Best near a decade of huffing sulking followed on my part, and whenever they were in the UK, I made my excuses not to go along and see them live. I was busy. I was broke. I was just not in the mood. Then tonight I gave in, and after witnessing the onstage magnificent of NIN, I felt like caving my skull in against the nearest hard surface as a reaction to my idiocy. ‘Sin’ ? ‘March of the Pigs’ ? For the pounding assault of two tracks alone, after tonight all is forgiven

Amongst the fog, often hiding behind giant, static-pulsing AV backdrops, tonight Trent Reznor showed us why he has single-handedly changed the face of music. Mid-set, flanked by keyboardist Alessandro Cortini and ex-Icarus Line guitarist, Aaron North, the NIN mainman and his cohorts use a trio of laptops to unleash an industrial throb that could level nations. If anyone else tried to do this, I’d condemn them of self-indulgent neglect of their audience. But this is disco for the damned – and the sheer concrete fist of the electronic beats suppresses any thought of dissent.

The sheer force of ‘Head Like A Hole’ puts the recorded version to shame. Classic or no, on ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ it seems muted and de-clawed. Here tonight, it sounds like the hellish bell ringing from the roof of a cybernetic charnel house. Couple that with stomping, bullish yet digitally precise renditions of ‘Only’, ‘The Hand That Feeds’ and ‘The Great Destroyer’, and you’ve got the guts of a near-classic Leeds Festival moment.

When a single spotlight picks out Reznor standing behind a keyboard for the finale, Music Towers gets one of those shivers of almost too-sexy anticipation down our spine that we haven’t got since we first started going to gigs when were barely counted as teenagers. When Reznor plays the opening chords of ‘Hurt’, we literally have to slap our hand over our mouth to stop from letting out a little giggle of joy.