Nine Inch Nails are what the media as a whole denies exists. A band that makes unbroadcast videos, releases unplayed singles, yet still manage to sell out 2 nights in one of London's biggest venues without releasing hardly anything in five years shows exactly the mood of the nineties (soon to be the naughties).

What is probably most bizarre is the crowd - a mixture of dying goths, hardcore industrial freaks in old Nitzer Ebb shirts, and this frightening new wave of Marilyn manson lookalikes (why look like somebody who doesn't know who they are?). Yet this disparate bunch are united under one fact.

That the media and the mainstream are not providing the people with anything that feeds our feelings. As the ancient theatre is still in stark floodlights between bands, almost imperceptably the intro to Pionion cranks out of the PA. As the lights dim and the massive black backdrop fall, the five piece are already well into the crushing Somewhat Damaged.

The stage set - of a huge windswept Fragile backdrop and tube lighting falling from the ceiling - is nothing but a contrast to the image below. Robin, who resembles no-one so much as a shorthaired Axl Rose - looks like a man whose lived a thousand years of decadence. The oiled Nails machine powers through an awesome Terrible Lie, Sin, March Of The Pigs / All The Pigs All Lined Up in quick succession that has the entire of the Brixton Academy (right to the back) moshing and punching the air. Piggy is next. Then the mood slows, exhausted.

Trent plays the keyboard like the classically trained pianist he is, and it looks as if everyone but Jerome is plugging away at a keyboard. The Wretched is next, and it soon becomes apparent that the Fragile material breathes with a vitality live that the record lacks. As a mood piece the album is fine, but live the songs expand and reach their true potential. The bludgeoning hate of the 91 "You Get What You Deserve" Tour has been tempered. Not by reflection, for all Trent sees wherever he looks is people who look like him, but by age. Sometimes exhaustion is as valid as anger.

Reptile - hardly a standout track from the Downward Spiral, and the fantastic No You Don't segue into Gave Up. Never performed live on previous tours, it appears as yet another overlooked track. Gave Up fades, the arena descends into darkness and the projection screen falls. As La Mer - featuring the oddly Trent-lookalike Jerome Dillon the only member visible from a gap in the screen (I'm sure he's the second drummer in the HLAH video) - begins, all that is visible is massive, grainy processed footage of waves, water, honeycombs, fire, black holes, stars, spermatoza, a multiplication of amoebas, insects, and flies all set to the heartbeat rhythms. The Great Below - the best thing on Fragile by miles - becomes Underneath It All (via a handy Theremin solo from Charlie) - the projections become engulfed in flames and lift to the ceiling. From here in on it's a full pelt race for the finish line as Wish, Into the Void, Down In It and Head Like A Hole proceed to knock the stragglers into submission. As Trent makes Christ poses, he casually throws his mike into the crowd during Wish - not in the insulting way Metallica drag out crowd participation to 20 minute lengths - but you wouldn't notice he'd stopped singing. The tone and pitch of the audience yelling every word (and live ad-libs) is identical to Trents.

Encore time : Eight years ago I first saw NIN play to 500 people in Birmingham and they hadn't yet released anything in the UK. It was the best night of my life for the next seven years. You could stand next to Trent (sorry, Mike Reznor) in a chip shop and nobody would know who he was. But now, everythings changed. 'He's a god, a totem of teenage pain, he understands my pain like no one else, he's my best friend...' the faceless masses roar to him. But does he care? Two UK dates in five years seems not to say so.

The hymn to suicide that is The Day The World Went Away drifts across Brixton hypnotically, and Starfuckers, which pounds on as Charlie systematically destroys most things he can find, is simply a kick in the teeth of all these jerkrock numbskull angst bands who miss the message. This, Trent is saying, is How It Is Done. His strength - that of being unable to help writing a song and then submerging it in noise - shows him to be infinitely more talented that his tuneless noise-obsessed so- called contemporaries who wouldn't know a song if it raped them. Closer drains the remaining crowd. And then, introduced by Trent as his favourite song, Hurt is played for the first time in the UK. It's breathtaking in its honesty, and then the arena is bathed in light, and the masses huddling towards exits.

Set list :
pinion, somewhat damaged, terrible lie, sin, march of the pigs (all the pigs all lined up), piggy, wretched, reptile, no you don't, gave up, la mer, great below, underneath it all,  wish, into the void,  down in it,
head like a hole, the day the world went away, starfuckers, closer,
hurt

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