Cold And Black And Infinite Tour
This tour took place between September and December in order to support the trilogy of Not The Actual Events, Add Violence and Bad Witch. It is part of the NIN 2017-2018 touring cycle. Main support for this tour was The Jesus and Mary Chain, who were supported by Nine Inch Nails during the 1990 Automatic Tour. Additional opening acts who took the stage ahead of The Jesus and Mary Chain were Tobacco, Kite Base, Daniel Avery, Death In Vegas, Gabe Gurnsey, HMLTD, and The Soft Moon.
Contents
Line-Up
- Alessandro Cortini: Keyboards, guitar, bass, backing vocals
- Robin Finck: Guitar, Keyboards, backing vocals
- Trent Reznor: Vocals, guitar, keyboards
- Atticus Ross: Keyboards, samples, programming, backing vocals
- Ilan Rubin: Drums, keyboards, backing vocals
Stage Set-Up
This touring cycle had a stripped down, back-to-basics approach, similar to that of the Performance 2007 and Wave Goodbye tours. Reznor stated that he had bowed out of the "arms-race" of concert technology and wanted to bring an element of danger and unpredictability. Behind the band was a scrim, and very basic lighting was used. Smoke machines were able to be used, as no elaborate visual elements would be interfered with. The looseness of production allowed for setlists for the overall cycle to be notably spontaneous. An aesthetic element was added with strands of recording tape hanging from mic stands, keyboard stands, and drum structures. This harked back to the music video for "Head Like A Hole", the Hate Tour, and certain portions of the Self Destruct Touring Cycle.
Typical Setlist
The tour had a significant variety in the setlist; however, there were a few regular occurrences:
- "Head Like A Hole" ended the main set, with "Hurt" being the last song played.
- Most shows had a three song passage from Bad Witch: "Shit Mirror", "Ahead Of Ourselves", and "God Break Down The Door".
No fewer than seven songs were played as the opening number, including "Now I'm Nothing".
The opening night of the tour featured the entirety of the Broken EP being played, including the first performance of "Happiness In Slavery" since 1995. The song would appear at several other shows throughout the tour. Broken went on to be performed a second time, with the omission of "Pinion", at the second show in Brooklyn. Subsequent shows had the EP played out of album order but featuring every song, sans "Pinion".
"The Perfect Drug" was played for the first time on the third night, 21 years after its release. "This Isn't The Place" and "Dear World," also made their debuts during the tour.
"Sin" and "And All That Could Have Been" were played at the second show in Chicago; the former being played live for the first time since 2009 and the latter for the first time ever.
The third show in Chicago featured "Subterraneans" by David Bowie, with lyrics from "God Break Down The Door" and "Over And Out" being incorporated into it, as well as some notes from "The Frail" at the end. This was the first time the song was played since 1995.
The first of six shows at the Palladium saw the live debut of the How To Destroy Angels songs "A Drowning" and "Welcome Oblivion (as performed by Nine Inch Nails).
The penultimate show in Los Angeles featured a guest appearance by Mike Garson on "Just Like You Imagined", "On The Wing", "La Mer", and a stripped-down rendition of "In This Twilight". Mariqueen Maandig appeared as a guest on both "On The Wing" and a later performance of "Ice Age". Gary Numan also performed his song "Metal" towards the end of the show.
The final show featured three How To Destroy Angels covers, again featuring Mariqueen Maandig: "BBB", "Welcome Oblivion" and "Ice Age". Mike Garson again appeared to perform the traditional song "Greensleeves", "Just Like You Imagined" and "La Mer".
Song Performance Statistics
The following are all the songs that were played on the tour, sorted chronologically in album order and how many times each song was performed. As such, the current total unique songs performed is 76 (counting "The Eater Of Dreams" as a unique song, though not counting "The Fireman" as it is entirely pre-recorded).
- "Head Like A Hole" - 39 times
- "Terrible Lie" - 8 times
- "Sanctified" - 10 times
- "Something I Can Never Have" - 5 times
- "Sin" - 10 times
Broken EP
- "Pinion" - 4 times
- "Wish" - 31 times
- "Last" - 11 times
- "Help Me I Am In Hell" - 15 times
- "Happiness In Slavery" - 15 times
- "Gave Up" - 25 times
- "Physical" - 5 times
- "Suck" - 7 times
- "Mr. Self Destruct" - 17 times
- "Piggy" - 19 times
- "March Of The Pigs" - 27 times
- "Closer" - 18 times
- "The Becoming" - 6 times
- "I Do Not Want This" - 3 times
- "A Warm Place" - 3 times
- "Eraser" - 5 times
- "Reptile" - 21 times
- "Hurt" - 39 times
- "Somewhat Damaged" - 11 times
- "The Day The World Went Away" - 14 times
- "The Frail" - 10 times
- "The Wretched" - 10 times
- "Just Like You Imagined" (with Mike Garson) - 2 times
- "Even Deeper" - 15 times
- "La Mer" - 5 times (2 times with Mike Garson)
- "Starfuckers, Inc." - 4 times
- "The Big Come Down" - 7 times
- "And All That Could Have Been" - 5 times
- "All The Love In The World" - 12 times
- "The Hand That Feeds" - 22 times
- "Only" - 6 times
- "Home" - 5 times
- "The Beginning Of The End" - 5 times
- "Survivalism" - 16 times
- "The Good Soldier" - 5 times
- "Me, I'm Not" - 10 times
- "The Great Destroyer" - 12 times
- "In This Twilight" (reworked piano version with Mike Garson) - 1 time
- "1,000,000" - 5 times
- "Letting You" - 11 times
- "Pinion" / "The Eater Of Dreams" - 1 time
- "Copy Of A" - 19 times
- "Came Back Haunted" - 1 time
- "Find My Way" - 5 times
Not The Actual Events EP
- "Branches/Bones" - 9 times
- "Dear World," - 4 times
- "Burning Bright (Field On Fire)" - 12 times
Add Violence EP
- "Less Than" - 17 times
- "The Lovers" - 21 times
- "This Isn't The Place" - 17 times
- "The Background World" - 5 times
Bad Witch
- "Shit Mirror" - 25 times
- "Ahead Of Ourselves" - 21 times
- "God Break Down The Door" - 22 times
- "Over And Out" - 16 times
Other
- "The Fireman" - 21 times (not counted toward song total tally as it is pre-recorded)
- "Now I'm Nothing" - 4 times
- "Burn" - 16 times
- "The Perfect Drug" - 20 times
- "I'm Afraid Of Americans" (David Bowie cover) - 15 times
- "I Can't Give Everything Away (Farewell Mix)" (David Bowie cover) - 6 times
- "Subterraneans" (David Bowie cover) - 5 times
- "Digital" (Joy Division cover) - 2 times
- "Dead Souls" (Joy Division cover) - 4 times
- "Metal" (Gary Numan cover) - 3 times (1 time performed with Numan)
- "Parasite" (How To Destroy Angels cover) - 3 times
- "Welcome Oblivion" (How To Destroy Angels cover) - 2 times
- "A Drowning" (How To Destroy Angels cover) - 1 time
- "On The Wing" (How To Destroy Angels cover) - 1 time
- "Ice Age" (How To Destroy Angels cover) - 2 times
- "BBB" (How To Destroy Angels cover) - 1 time
- "Greensleeves" (with Mike Garson) - 1 time
Tour Dates
Canceled 2020 leg
On May 19, 2020, Trent Reznor stated that an additional leg of the tour had been planned for the fall of that year, but was preemptively canceled due to the pandemic. The opening act would have been Jehnny Beth. Merchandise that had already been manufactured for the tour was put up for sale on nin.com, with the proceeds going to charity.