NIN Dazzles With Lasers, LEDs and Stealth Screens

Trent Reznor is silhouetted by undulating orbs of light during a performance of "The Warning."
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

A vast wall of swirling static dances appears on a giant screen as Trent Reznor and his band launch into their song, "Only." Initially obscured by this sea of visual white noise, the Nine Inch Nails front man intermittently appears to push through the particles of snow with his hands and body, popping in and out of view and opening up random tunnels in the chaos.

"Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself," he sings.

Nine Inch Nails fans are accustomed to such sonic and visual feasts whenever Reznor and company go out on tour. But this time around, NIN has pulled out all the stops, creating a groundbreaking, fully interactive visual display that is as much a part of the show as the band's instruments.

"I'm not really a purist," admits Reznor. "If I'm in the studio working on an album, I try to only please myself. But when it's a tour, it feels a bit more like I have a responsibility to some degree to entertain people."

Reznor and other band members use Lemurs during the "electronic set." The touchscreen devices can be used to control a range of audio and visual aspects of the show on the fly.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

For the band's current Lights in the Sky tour, Reznor has not only raised the bar for what's possible in an arena tour, but has also produced what could arguably be one of the most technologically ambitious rock productions ever conceived. Unlike most rock shows, the visuals for about 40 percent of the show (including "Only") aren't pre-rendered. There's no staging, no pantomiming by band members: It's all interactive, live and rendered on the fly.

With more than 40 tons of lighting and stage rigging, hundreds of LED lights, a daunting array of professional and custom-built machinery running both archaic and standard commercial VJ software, three different video systems and an array of sensors and cameras, the tour is nothing if not a lavish display of techno wizardry.

According to Reznor, it all started with a relatively simple idea.

"I wanted to see how I could use video as an instrument," he says, "and try to really make the stage feel like it's organic -- like it's part of the overall set."

Judging from initial reactions to the show, the band has done just that.

Reviews have called LiTS everything from a "vision of splendor" to "the pinnacle of video art," and nowhere is Reznor's showmanship and willingness to tinker with new technologies more apparent than in the band's current tour.

NIN programmer and keyboardist Alessandro Cortini stands in back of the giant stealth screen during sound check.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Transparent Screens

The core of the show is a sophisticated trio of transparent "stealth" screens, which are raised and lowered during the performance.

Using one high-resolution (1024 x 288) Barco D7 screen -- basically, an opaque, computer-controlled screen comprised of a tiny LED system on modular panels -- and two lower-resolution semitransparent screens up front, Reznor and other band members are able to trigger and control various video loops and effects directly from the stage. The musicians can also interact directly with those visuals onscreen during the show, thanks to a sophisticated array of sensors and cameras.

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