Nine Inch Nails were finally able to celebrate their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction this weekend in their native Cleveland, which included a Saturday night concert that featured the return of several former members from the band’s Pretty Hate Machine era.
Although Trent Reznor and company were inducted into the Rock Hall in 2020, the event was scaled down to a television-only special due to the Covid-19 pandemic; a Cleveland celebration was then scheduled for 2021, only to be postponed again. Two years removed from the induction, the band finally held Nine Inch Nails Fan Day on Friday ahead of their Saturday gig at the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Cleveland.com reported.
The NIN Fan Day festivities included a Q&A with current and former members, including co-founding member Chris Vrenna, bassist Danny Lohner, keyboardist Charlie Clouser and, most notably, guitarist Richard Patrick, the Filter frontman who left the band in 1993 after an argument with Reznor. (Adding to the acrimony: Patrick was not among the seven NIN members inducted into the Rock Hall; Vrenna and Lohner made the cut.)
However, after settling whatever lingering grudges for the Q&A, the four former members next rejoined Nine Inch Nails onstage for the final six songs of the Ohio concert, focusing on the band’s late-Eighties/early-Nineties output (“Eraser,” “Wish,” “Sin,” “Gave Up”) and, in a surprise, a cover of Filter’s “Hey Man Nice Shot” with Patrick leading the way. The one-off reunited lineup wrapped up the concert with “Head Like a Hole.”