Nine Inch Nails Perform Entire Downward Spiral Album In NYC

Trent Reznor sure knows how to keep things interesting. Big news out of the Big Apple with word that Sunday night at Webster Hall Nine Inch Nails played its 1994 classic The Downward Spiral in its entirety for the first time ever.

Reznor and Co. are currently on a farewell tour of small venues – the ‘Wave Goodbye Tour,’ as it were.

According to Billboard, once Reznor was halfway through “Mr. Self Destruct,” it was becoming clear to everyone in attendance the band was set to  run through all of The Downward Spiral – in sequence.

Reznor later told the audience, “I’ve always wanted to play that whole record, and this seemed like the time to do it.”

The New York show is number 2 of just 10 farewell shows set for NYC, Chicago, Toronto and Los Angeles.

The “Downward” sequence features the big hit “Closer,” which wasn’t played the night before during the band’s stop at the Bowery Ballroom, and finished with the hushed “Hurt,” which became known to an entirely different audience thanks to Johnny Cash’s memorable 2002 cover version.

Once NIN finished blowing the crowd’s mind with the complete Downward, the band played 10 more songs without an encore, including “Suck,” “The Hand That Feeds” and its breakthrough 1989 hit, “Head Like a Hole.”

After the show, the new media aficionado Reznor Twittered:

That was a FUN (and exhausting) show to play tonight! Thanks to all who attended. (TR)

Once the ‘thanks, and goodbye tour’ ends September 6 at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, there’s really no word yet what Reznor is going to do – besides Twitter. But he’s definitely going out hardcore and making fans at these farewell shows really, really happy.

Nine Inch Nails’ Aug. 23 Webster Hall set list:

• “Mr. Self Destruct”
• “Piggy”
• “Heresy”
• “March of the Pigs”
• “Closer”
• “Ruiner”
• “The Becoming”
• “I Do Not Want This”
• “Big Man with a Gun”
• “A Warm Place”
• “Eraser”
• “Reptile”
• “The Downward Spiral”
• “Hurt”
• “1,000,000″
• “Terrible Lie”
• “Metal”
• “Lights in the Sky”
• “Burn”
• “Gave Up”
• “Suck”
• “Physical”
• “The Hand That Feeds”
• “Head Like a Hole”