THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411270110
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music Review
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Misanthropes, masochists and malcontents - it was freaks on parade at the Hampton Coliseum Friday evening. And, oh, what a show.
Hurtling headlong through the stage drapery to the caustic riffs of set-opener ``Mr. Self Destruct,'' from their latest album, Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor launched a superbly choreographed tantrum.
Reznor sent microphone stands sailing, defiled and gutted suspended keyboards and hurled gushing bottles of water at his four-man band and the audience. It gave combative resonance to his rantings of betrayal, self-loathing and anomie that have filled Nine Inch Nails' two LPs and two EPs.
Songwriter Reznor's throbbing, keyboard-driven electro-dance and thrashing, guitar-fueled heavy metal idioms serve his sociopathic unease well.
Favorites like the pulsating ``Sin,'' hip-hop inflected ``Down In It'' and expansive ``Head Like A Hole'' were rendered with multi-layers of looped percussion tracks buttressing organic drums and, frequently, a three-man guitar assault.
Newer material - like the alternately acerbic and melodic ``March Of The Pigs'' and sinister shuffle ``Piggy,'' both from current LP ``The Downward Spiral,'' and sneering ``Suck,'' a Reznor collaboration with industrial all-stars group Pigface - gave similarly grand form to Reznor's vengeful and revulsive visions.
The singer provided a somber interlude toward the end of his performance. Morbidly beautiful projections of devastated landscapes and decaying carcasses played over a transparent screen during a quietly aching read of ``Hurt,'' with gentle piano buoying Reznor's despairing vocal.
Reznor and band returned to the stage for a single encore, the highlight of which was a looming take on ``Closer,'' also from the new album.
Nine Inch Nails' performance was preceded by the Jim Rose Circus, a human demolition spectacle that included Mr. Lifto, who hefted irons with his pierced ears, cinderblocks with his pierced nipples and a heavy leather jacket on a coathanger skewered through his nose.
Metal-edged opening act Marilyn Manson - who inhabits a kind of profane babes-in-toyland aesthetic - offered a confrontational set from their unsettling debut LP, ``Portrait Of An American Family,'' released on Reznor's own Nothing record label.
The group's performance climaxed with singer Mr. Manson, an anorectic Alice Cooper type, peeling off his leather trousers to cavort obscenely in anatomically exaggerated rubber briefs during the seething ``My Monkey.'' MEMO: MUSIC REVIEW
Nine Inch Nails
With Marilyn Manson and the Jim Rose Circus
Friday at Hampton Coliseum by CNB