Trent Reznor

There was something about a Nine Inch Nails show in the daylight that just felt wrong. "Maybe," Trent Reznor said in a sly murmur, "it was the fact that it wasn't dark." Reznor, the angst auteur behind Nine Inch Nails, toured this summer with Jane's Addiction with every intention of retiring from the road. The plan, Reznor had said, was to put the band's concert life on hiatus for a decade or so and to say farewell with a twist, as the opening act for the elder Jane's latest reunion.

"Nothing can stop me now," Trent Reznor snarled as he lunged toward his audience during the song "Piggy" at the outset of Nine Inch Nails' sold-out show at the Hollywood Palladium on Wednesday. The statement held some irony, given that Reznor has announced he's retiring his band, as a live act at least. It's been 15 years since "The Downward Spiral," the concept album about loneliness and despair that contained that song, became the most successful industrial music album in history and catapulted Reznor squarely into the mainstream spotlight.