Beyond hurt

Dressed in his trademark black, Reznor and the four-piece band opened with "Love Is Not Enough," a song from the new album that shows Reznor has found room for gentler emotions without sacrificing the sonic punch of his trademark industrial rock assault. In the song, Reznor speaks of old friends ("In your eyes is a place worth remembering") and new admissions ("underneath we're not so tough").

The growling "The Hand That Feeds" drew the most response from the audience. The track features a slightly more guitar-oriented rock sound -- not the synthesizer-driven approach of the "Downward Spiral" days.

The tune is one of Reznor's rare excursions into social comment, a warning against blind acceptance of authority, including that of a president leading his nation to war. "Just how deep do you believe?" Reznor snarled. "Will you bite the hand that feeds? Will you chew until it bleeds? Will you get up off your knees?"

In the recording studio, Reznor plays most of the instruments himself, including guitar, synthesizers and bass. On the current tour, however, he is joined by bassist Jeordie White (who toured with Marilyn Manson as Twiggy Ramirez), guitarist Aaron North, keyboardist Alessandro Cortini and drummer Jerome Dillon.

As the band left the stage, it was easy to think back to the '90s, when Reznor and Cobain boldly brought raw honesty and emotion to a rock world that had become increasingly hollow and timid.

In the worst times, Reznor said, he thought about how Cobain killed himself with a shotgun and wondered about his own future.

"I wouldn't buy a gun, but I could see where the drinking and the cocaine could lead. You get to a point where you just don't care. When I wrote 'Hurt,' I was thinking about my own pain, but I was also trying to imagine the emptiest a person could feel. But 'Hurt' became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wasn't flirting around the rim of darkness anymore. I was right down at the bottom of the despair."

Creativity loves misery

After years of living in New Orleans, Reznor now makes his home in the Hollywood Hills because, for one thing, his friends here don't drink. He used to be intimidated by life in New York and Los Angeles because he didn't feel he could live up to expectations people have of rock stars, which is surprising because he seems so commanding onstage and so smart and articulate in interviews.