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Peel It Back Tour
2025–2026 concert tour by Nine Inch Nails From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Peel It Back Tour is an ongoing concert tour by the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, consisting of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who are joined by longtime touring members Robin Finck and Alessandro Cortini. Ilan Rubin performed during the European leg, with Josh Freese taking over starting with the North American leg. Boys Noize has been the opening act for every show on the tour. The tour, consisting of 63 shows across Europe and North America, started in Dublin, Ireland on June 15, 2025, and is scheduled to finish in Sacramento, United States on March 16, 2026. It was preceeded by the band's US and UK shows in 2022.
After Reznor and Ross had focused on composing film scores, they made plans to put their creative inspiration into new Nine Inch Nails work. A new Nine Inch Nails project was expected since December 2024, and leaks regarding concert dates began in mid-January 2025 until the band confirmed their, but the announcement had been delayed due to the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires. They later confirmed dates for the Peel It Back Tour, with a European leg running from June through July and a North American leg from August through September. In October, they announced an extension adding additional North American shows scheduled for February and March 2026.
From their discography, the band played both their main hits and deep cuts, and shows were split between a main and B-stage. The concert's staging displayed visuals of rain, moving silhouettes, and dramatic curtain drops, with recording done by way of hand-held cinematography, and using displays 3D projected onto translucent fabric. The Peel It Back Tour received critical acclaim, gaining praise for its lighting and production, energetic performances, and Freese's return.
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Background and events
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In April 2024, Nine Inch Nails announced numerous upcoming projects through new multimedia company With Teeth, including a music festival, a new album, short film, and video game. In August, they announced that the band would compose the score to Disney's Tron: Ares (2025), the first of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's film scores to credit the Nine Inch Nails name after over a dozen prior works.[1][2][3] After having been focused more on film scores,[4] Reznor indicated in December 2024 that he and Ross were "taking the inspiration we've garnered and funneling it into a Nine Inch Nails project", and that the duo was ready to return to the "driver's seat".[5] Reznor elaborated that material released by "Nine Inch Nails" had been their work in relation to the zeitgeist, which he felt less connected to as he aged, but said that this purpose was changing, and that beyond the Tron score he mused that other Nine Inch Nails activity in 2025 was not out of the question.[6]
Plans for a tour titled "Peel It Back" leaked on January 13, 2025, the title alluding to the band's song "March of the Pigs" from The Downward Spiral (1994).[4] These leaks indicated August and September shows in the United States, Canada, and Europe; a September 10 date at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida suggested that tickets were going on sale starting January 17.[7] The leaks included an associated Ticketmaster listing for the Tampa date, with numerous concert locations in America emerging online, as well as in Toronto, Canada and Manchester, England.[1] On the 14th, the band confirmed they were touring, with further details to follow, but their announcement was paused due to the concurrent Los Angeles wildfires.[4][8] The Peel It Back Tour marks the band's first tour since the completion of their 2022 US and UK shows.[4] Dates for a North American leg were indicated by the online leaks with shows in Brooklyn, Tampa, Atlanta, Raleigh, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Cleveland; as well dates for a Europe leg with shows in Manchester and London.[4]
On January 22, 2025, Nine Inch Nails announced the tour dates, with a European leg starting in June in Dublin and ending in July; and a North American leg starting in August and ending in September in Los Angeles.[9] The dates included arena shows and stops at European music festivals.[10] Three more shows were added to the tour on January 29.[11] On March 5, Nine Inch Nails announced that Boys Noize, who completed the Challengers (MIXED) remix album for their 2024 score of the film Challengers, would open for the band on every show of the Peel It Back Tour.[12] The show in Lyon was canceled by June 13.[13] At the June 15 opening show in Ireland, the band's lineup was revealed which, along with Reznor and Ross, included Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini, and Ilan Rubin;[14] Finck served as guitarist,[15] Cortini as bassist / keyboardist,[16] and Rubin served as drummer.[17] Rubin would depart from the band after the European leg to join the Foo Fighters, being replaced by past member Josh Freese starting with the North American leg, who himself had been fired from the Foo Fighters a few months before.[18][17] Reznor said at the first show of the North American leg that Freese had rehearsed for the Peel It Back Tour for only one day, as opposed to the months of practice the other members had beforehand.[15]
On October 1, 2025, the band announced the tour would be extended into 2026 with 22 additional North American dates, starting in February in New Orleans and ending in March in Sacramento.[19][20]
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Performances
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The arena concert format has been structured around two performance spaces: a main stage for performing their hit songs, and a B-stage for the deep cuts, acoustic renditions, and remixes by Boys Noize.[21][17] The band played songs from their releases including Pretty Hate Machine (1989),[22] Broken (1992), The Downward Spiral (1994), Further Down the Spiral (1995),[23] With Teeth (2005), and Hesitation Marks (2013).[24] The band often switched up their setlists from night to night.[25] The beginning of the North American leg in Oakland saw the live debut of the song "As Alive As You Need Me to Be" from the Tron: Ares soundtrack (2025).[17] Cover songs played include David Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans" (1997),[24] and How to Destroy Angels's "Parasite" (2010).[23]
Produced by Live Nation,[10][26] the shows have been led in collaboration with creative director Todd Tourso and MTLA.studio, and featured the work of the band's longtime lighting designer Paul "Arlo" Guthrie.[21] The concert staging displayed visuals of rain, moving silhouettes, and dramatic curtain drops marking movements on the stage,[24] shot with hand-held cinematography.[21] The visuals were created using 3D projection onto translucent fabric, rather than typical LED panels.[27] The imagery often produced a holographic effect, otherwise creating a psychedelic effect when footage was played out-of-sync.[28] A mechanism was situated above the B-stage, which projected mood lighting for each song.[29]
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Reception
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The Peel It Back Tour received critical acclaim.[30][31][32] Aspects of praise were the lighting and production,[32][26] energetic performances,[26] and drummer Josh Freese's return.[33] Among the biggest concert tours in 2025,[18] it attracted over 450,000 concertgoers during the 2025 shows.[20]
Concerning the debut show, The Times opined it was "a thrilling onslaught" of "angst, sincerity and a nightmarish otherworldliness" that brought to mind Reznor's recently passed creative collaborator David Lynch.[34] Of the same show, The Irish Times praised the "satisfyingly immense" staging, and the artistry of the performances.[24] Both papers agreed that the show took a little while to get into gear.[34][24] Louder Sound wrote the performances of understated songs sparked "wonder and awe", and said the more energetic performances were "thrillingly violent" and palpable.[35] Consequence described the production as "visually stunning", praising the futuristic lighting and lauding the projections on the main stage as "breathtaking" and cinematic.[29] BrooklynVegan praised the lighting and talent of the cinematographer, and singled out the contrubutions of Tourso and Guthrie for achieving "jaw-dropping visuals" that "really made the show".[28] The San Francisco Chronicle wrote Reznor's voice was in "fine form" emotionally, projecting "anguish and loss with both force and nuance".[15] Evening Standard wrote the staging was "breathtaking".[22] Several publications witnessed issues during their shows, including a microphone malfunction at one show, Reznor being "baptized" by a leaky fog machine at another, and what the Chicago Sun-Times described as "obnoxious Trent cat callers"; critics noted Reznor's response and resolve in the face of them.[36]
Louder called the B-stage collaboration with Boys Noize "joyously intense",[35] The Irish Times described it as "thrilling" and compared it to a scene out of a dystopian film,[24] and the San Francisco Chronicle praised the rendition of "Copy of A".[15] The Evening Standard said the rendition of "Came Back Haunted" foremostly displayed the dance music aspect of the band, bringing to mind the score to Challengers,[22] though The Times opined it as "crushing dancefloor workouts" that suggested "an indulgence between friends rather than a gesture to fans".[34] Evening Standard said in his opening act, the DJ turned the scene into "a Blade film"—a "perfect setup" for the techno-inspired band, describing the set as erotically "moody, spectacular and pulsating";[22] Stereogum agreed with the Blade comparison and concurred that Boys Noize effectively set up a "mood" for Reznor.[25] San Francisco Chronicle praised drummer Freese for his competency returning to the band in his first show,[15] the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the drum part on "The Perfect Drug"—a song Freese never played during his original tenure with the band—served as a litmus test for the drummer that the newspaper wrote he "passed with honors".[16] The Los Angeles Times wrote that by the end of the tour Freese had become a "fan-favorite returning hero" who added "pure rocker muscle" to the band,[33] and BrooklynVegan similarly noted positive fan reaction, praising his introductory drum solo during their show as "hypnoti[c]".[28]
Critics praised the political timeliness of performing "Head Like a Hole" and the Reznor-produced "I'm Afraid of Americans".[37] Irish Times praised the "stark minimalist beauty" of "The Frail" and "doomy grandeur" of "The Wretched",[24] while Stereogum likened Reznor to Elton John during his piano performances.[25] Louder described the ending performance of "Hurt" as quietly devastating, uniting an "enraptured" and "utterly immersed" room,[35] The Irish Times described Reznor's "majestic" performance as reminding everyone of its roots past Johnny Cash's cover,[24] The Times described it as "quietly yet devastatingly" performed with "dark charisma"—describing it as a moment of "searing humanity and fragility",[34] Los Angeles Times felt Reznor displayed "tightly coiled emotion and intimate grandeur",[33] and San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Reznor, with "visceral pain and regret", demonstrated that the words "Everyone I know / Goes away in the end" remained "timeless" decades after the song's release.[15]
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Tour dates
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Notes
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References
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