Nine Inch Nails @ The SSE Hydro, 20 May

Slinking on stage through mist to the sinister strains of The New Flesh, Trent Reznor somehow has everything and nothing to prove here tonight. With a track record for selling out the Academy and Barras in a matter of minutes, aiming for the 13,000 capacity Hydro still seems like a roll of the dice for Nine Inch Nails’ first indoor gig in Scotland since 2007.

Insatiable ambition has steered the band through greater challenges in its 26 years; anyone reclining in the nosebleeds with an overpriced bean burger and the assumption that some easy, workmanlike victory lap is about to tick by will be quickly winched to their feet by a band fully committed to the art of engagement.

Pared back to a minimal (but versatile) touring unit for this latest European leg – flanked by long-term lynchpin Robin Finck, Ilan Rubin and Alessandro Cortini – a Kraftwerk-like formation gathers in the shadows to tease out the sinister pulse of Me, I'm Not. A Gorbals dialect roars from the floor over the reverent awe: 'Check oot that fuckin' bass!' Cue a gauze projector screen dropping down and smoke machines billowing into overdrive as March of the Pigs’ clattering beat bulldozes any sense of ceremony – the first evidence that this is a rock concert as much as a state-of-the-art spectacle (with frickin’ laser beams).  

No stone is left unturned as Reznor mines the archive – The Downward Spiral‘s 20th anniversary is given due respect next to highlights from last year's comparatively muted Hesitation Marks – and a keen sense of reinvention permeates every number. A muscular, bass-heavy splice work of Sanctified and Sunspots – representing two distinct eras of the band some 17 years apart – holds a mirror up to Reznor’s enduring pop nous. Similarly, hearing industrial, radio friendly dance-rock anomalies like The Hand That Feeds and Head Like A Hole played back to back is a reminder that, despite mellowing with age (at least on record), certain lyrical obsessions have proven difficult to shake.

Further highlights arrive thick and fast in a 22 song set which sees Gave Up reinstating the fury while The Great Destroyer collapses into a digital meltdown. Sending the gauze curtain skyward, Hurt closes the show with operatic poignancy. It’s just one of the more expansive, slow-gathering moments – like Eraser’s cyberpunk spaghetti western vibe or The Frail/The Wretched’s cinematic majesty – which argue for Nine Inch Nails’ continued climb to bigger stages. [Dave Kerr]