Pretty Hate Machine Tour Series (1988–1991) Reznor assembled the first live line-up in 1988 to support the Canadian
industrial music band
Skinny Puppy on tour. The three-piece band consisted of Reznor on guitars and lead vocals, Ron Musarra on drums, and
Chris Vrenna on keyboards. The band was only scheduled to play for the last six dates of Skinny Puppy's U.S. tour, and they self-described the performances as "rough". After the Skinny Puppy tour, the band was rearranged and expanded to include a fourth member; Musarra departed and Vrenna moved to drums,
Gary Talpas, Nick Rushe, and later David Hymes contributed on keyboards, while
Richard Patrick was added as guitarist. tour, 1991 Nine Inch Nails toured North America as an opening act for
The Jesus and Mary Chain in 1990, and later for
Peter Murphy. Later in 1990, the band undertook a nationwide headlining tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991, where, according to biographer Martin Huxley, they "stole the show". Nine Inch Nails was then invited to open for Guns N' Roses on their European Tour, though they were reportedly poorly received. Before the Lollapalooza date, Chris Vrenna left the band due to a falling out with Reznor, and was replaced for the remainder of the tour by drummer
Jeff Ward. though for decades, the official narrative the band gave the media was that it was spontaneous pre-concert backstage play, with Reznor pushing Lohner into the mud pit before the concert began, and the whole band having a mud fight. Nine Inch Nails was widely proclaimed to have "stolen the show" from its popular contemporaries, mostly classic rock bands, and its fan base expanded. The band received considerable mainstream success thereafter, performing with significantly higher production values and the addition of various theatrical visual elements. Its performance of "
Happiness in Slavery" from the Woodstock concert earned the group a
Grammy Award for
Best Metal Performance in 1995. Despite this acclaim, Reznor attributed his dislike of the concert to its technical difficulties. After a larger arena tour leg called Further Down the Spiral, Nine Inch Nails performed at the
Alternative Nation Festival in Australia and subsequently embarked on the
Dissonance Tour, which included 26 separate performances with co-headliner David Bowie. Nine Inch Nails was the opening act for the tour, and its set transitioned into Bowie's set with joint performances of both bands' songs. Following the end of the Dissonance Tour, the band played a handful of club shows with
Helmet as support. Finck departed the band after the conclusion of this leg. The tour concluded with "Nights of Nothing", a three-night showcase of performances from Nothing Records bands Marilyn Manson,
Prick,
Meat Beat Manifesto, and
Pop Will Eat Itself, which ended with an 80-minute set from Nine Inch Nails.
Kerrang! described the Nine Inch Nails set during the Nights of Nothing showcase as "tight, brash and dramatic", but was disappointed at the lack of new material.
Kevin McMahon filled in for the departed Finck on guitar. On the second of the three nights, Richard Patrick was briefly reunited with the band and contributed guitar to a performance of "
Head Like a Hole". After the Self Destruct tour, Chris Vrenna, member of the live band since 1988 and frequent contributor to Nine Inch Nails studio recordings, left the act permanently to pursue a career in
producing and to form
Tweaker.
Fragility v1.0 / Fragility v2.0 (1999–2000) In support of Nine Inch Nails' third full-length studio album,
The Fragile, the live-band reformed for the Fragility tour. The lineup remained largely the same from the Self-Destruct tour, featuring Finck (who rejoined the band), Charlie Clouser (who replaced James Woolley halfway through the Self-Destruct tour), and Lohner. To replace long-time member Vrenna, Reznor held open auditions to find a new drummer, eventually picking then-unknown
Jerome Dillon. Nine Inch Nails' record label at the time,
Interscope Records, reportedly refused to fund the promotional tour following
The Fragile's lukewarm sales. Reznor instead committed himself to fund the entire tour out of his own pocket, concluding that "The reality is, I’m broke at the end of the tour," but also adding, "I will never present a show that isn’t fantastic." The Fragility tour began in late 1999, running until mid-2000, and was broken into two major legs, Fragility v1.0 and Fragility v2.0. Destinations included Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and North America. Before the first Fragility performance date in Spain, Nine Inch Nails opened their final rehearsal in
London to 100 fans.
Atari Teenage Riot opened for Nine Inch Nails during Fragility v1.0, and
A Perfect Circle opened for Fragility v2.0. At the time, A Perfect Circle featured
Josh Freese on drums, who would later replace Dillon and play drums for Nine Inch Nails from 2005 to 2008 and then from 2025 onwards.
Rolling Stone magazine named Fragility the best tour of 2000. In 2002, the tour documentary
And All That Could Have Been was released featuring a collection of performances from the Fragility v2.0 tour. While making the DVD, Reznor commented on the tour in retrospect by saying "I thought the show was really, really good when we were doing it", but later admitted that he "can't watch [the DVD] at all. I was sick for most of that tour and I really don't think it was Nine Inch Nails at its best".
Jerodie White joined the band on bass. The tour began with a series of small-club performances early in 2005 with the
Dresden Dolls opening. The band followed with a North American arena tour in autumn 2005, supported by
Queens of the Stone Age,
Death From Above 1979,
Autolux, and
Saul Williams. Williams performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at the
Voodoo Music Experience festival during a headlining appearance in
hurricane-stricken New Orleans, Reznor's former home. To conclude the
With Teeth era of the band, Nine Inch Nails completed a tour of North American amphitheaters in the summer of 2006, joined by
Bauhaus,
TV on the Radio, and
Peaches. Nine Inch Nails were scheduled to perform at the 2005
MTV Movie Awards, but dropped themselves from the show due to a disagreement with the network over the use of an unaltered image of
George W. Bush as a backdrop to the band's performance of "
The Hand that Feeds". Soon afterwards, Reznor wrote on the official Nine Inch Nails website: "apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me". and "The Great Destroyer") were played by Reznor, guitarist North and keyboard player Cortini as a 3-piece, using a combination of live guitars and pre-programmed samples triggered onstage with computers and manipulated in real time using Ableton software. In April 2007, Nine Inch Nails fans received in-game telephone-calls in which they were invited to a "resistance meeting" in Los Angeles. At the meeting, fans attended a fictional Art Is Resistance meeting, and were later rewarded by an unannounced performance by Nine Inch Nails. The concert was cut short as the meeting was raided by a fictional
SWAT team and the audience was rushed out of the building. Later that year, the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that the September 18 show in
Honolulu would be the last performance of the current incarnation of the Nine Inch Nails live band. Reznor told the newspaper "at this point, I want to switch things around a bit. Nine Inch Nails as a rock band configuration, we've done it and we've done it again. I see other ways I can present the material in concert, more challenging, something new. I don't want it to go stale". Cortini and Freese returned as members from the previous tour, while
Robin Finck rejoined the band on guitar. The lineup was initially to include
Rich Fownes, during the 2008 Lights In The Sky Tour. The band headlined the 2008
Lollapalooza festival, the 2008
Virgin Festival, and the first
Pemberton Music Festival. In May 2008, Nine Inch Nails announced that premium seating for all the upcoming 2008 tour shows would be offered in a pre-sale for fans who registered at the official Nine Inch Nails website. In an effort to combat
ticket scalpers, each concert ticket will list the purchaser's legal name. The ticketing process was previously used for smaller pre-sales and was available exclusively to fan club members. On July 26, Reznor introduced an "unplugged" portion into the live show in which the band steps to the front of the stage about an hour into the show, with Reznor on vibraphone and bassist Meldal-Johnsen playing an upright bass. The 20-minute jazzy, acoustic set is taken mostly from
Ghosts I–IV. The stage show also featured mesh LED curtains that projected various visuals, ranging from falling rain to static to a ruined city, and made the band appear to be playing on "a stage that appeared to be constructed entirely out of lights." On October 8, 2008, after finishing up their last show in South America, Reznor posted on the official Nine Inch Nails website blog that Josh Freese would be leaving the band following the completion of the current tour. At the conclusion of the tour, Cortini also announced that he was leaving the band.
NIN|JA / Wave Goodbye (2009) In 2008, Reznor decided to put Nine Inch Nails on indefinite hiatus. He later clarified that "NIN as a touring live band or live band that's on the road all the time [would be] stopping" after a comprehensive tour, but that he would continue to produce music thereafter. In 2009,
Ilan Rubin joined the band on drums, while Cortini's keyboardist position was not filled. The band embarked on a world farewell tour named Wave Goodbye. After an initial set of dates in New Zealand and Australia, they embarked on a summer amphitheater co-headlining tour of the U.S. with Jane's Addiction, dubbed the NIN|JA Tour. They then played a number of European and Asian festival and venues through the rest of the summer. In the fall, they played a short run of then-final U.S. shows at clubs and theaters.
Twenty Thirteen / Tension 2013 / NIN 2014 (2013–2014) In February 2013, Trent Reznor announced that Nine Inch Nails would begin touring in support for
Hesitation Marks, with festival performances in the summer, Tension 2013 arena performances in the fall, and worldwide performances throughout 2014. After Eric Avery and Adrian Belew dropped out during rehearsals, the festival tour lineup featured Alessandro Cortini,
Josh Eustis, Robin Finck, Trent Reznor, and Ilan Rubin. For the Tension arena tour, Reznor added bassist
Pino Palladino and backup vocalists
Lisa Fischer and Sharlotte Gibson to the line-up. After the Tension tour, Palladino, Fischer, Gibson, and Eustis departed, returning the band to a four-piece. They embarked on an international tour through Japan, Latin America, and Europe, including a co-headlining tour with
Queens of the Stone Age in New Zealand and Australia. In the summer of 2014, they embarked on a summer amphitheater co-headlining tour with
Soundgarden.
I Can't Seem to Wake Up (2017) In March 2017, it was announced that the band would be supporting
Not the Actual Events and
Add Violence and perform at
FYF Fest and
Panorama Music Festival in July, with a few more shows added later in the year. The touring line-up featured the same line-up as the NIN 2014 tour which included Reznor, Finck, Cortini and Rubin, with the band's new official member,
Atticus Ross, also joining the line-up. Nine Inch Nails begin the tour by performing at the
Rabobank Arena in
Bakersfield, California on July 19.
NIN 2018 / Cold and Black and Infinite (2018) In 2018, NIN returned with the same band line-up to play a three-date warm-up in Las Vegas. They then played a tour of festival and headlining dates in Europe and Asia during the summer. During the fall, they played a run of theater dates in the U.S., called the Cold and Black and Infinite Tour, often playing multiple dates at the same venue.
Cancelled tours (2020–2021) Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the band was forced to cancel a planned tour that was to take place between September and October 2020. Trent Reznor announced via social media that he planned to still sell the merchandise that was to be sold during the tour, donating all profits to local food banks to the cities where the band was supposed to perform. The band later canceled a tour that was to take place in 2021 because of further concerns with the ongoing pandemic.
NIN 2022 (2022) On February 7, 2022, Nine Inch Nails announced that the band would finally return to touring, with a limited run of tour dates in the U.S. in the spring and fall. More dates were later announced for the band touring in the United Kingdom in June.
100 gecs,
Yves Tumor and
Boy Harsher were announced as the opening acts for select shows, along with a show on September 24 in
Cleveland, Ohio with
Ministry and
Nitzer Ebb.
Peel it Back (2025–2026) Plans for a tour titled
Peel It Back leaked on January 13, 2025. These leaks indicated August and September shows in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The leaks included a
Facebook post for a September 10 event in
Tampa, Florida, and an associated
Ticketmaster listing. On the 14th, the band confirmed they were touring, with further details to follow, but their announcement was paused due to the ongoing
Los Angeles wildfires. The band then confirmed the summer tour on January 22. On July 30, the band announced that
Josh Freese would return on drums, replacing Ilan Rubin, who was recruited by
Foo Fighters as their new drummer. On October 1, 2025, a second North American leg of the Peel It Back tour was announced, scheduled for February and March 2026. ==Visual elements==