Pop Music Reviews : Technical Glitches Hammer Nails’ Set

Trent Reznor hissed and screamed Tuesday night at the Palace over a hot and cold set by Nine Inch Nails that was plagued by technical glitches. The chief casualty was the intimacy that drives his cathartic music.

Reznor is the mastermind behind Nine Inch Nails’ tortured, industrial-rock sound, which has attracted an avid cult of alienated teens.

Tuesday’s crowd--many dressed in Gothic black with their hair dyed and teased--knew the words to every song and sang as intently as if they were up on stage.

But even that intense adoration didn’t help ease Reznor’s frustration as he battled against a variety of technical problems--from a crackling sound system to a malfunctioning microphone.

The thin, ratty-haired performer even walked off stage at one point midway through the set when his keyboard, the lifeblood of his music, went on the fritz.

Though Reznor and the band he put together for the tour--guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer--tried to keep the show charged, their confidence seemed challenged and at times defeated by the problems. For at least half of the hour-plus time on stage, the quintet was unable to capture the intensity that drives NIN’s most recent album, “The Downward Spiral.” The record, that band’s first full album since 1990’s “Pretty Hate Machine,” shows that creepy ambience can be as powerful as the petrifying grind of mechanical noise. The album is less abrasive and in-your-face than Reznor’s past work, but its quiet moments prove as twisted and riveting as the loud ones.

The new, soft-loud psychodynamics of Nine Inch Nails’ music work in the studio, where it comes across as a powerful documentation of insecurity and isolation. But the stage may be too impersonal and uncontrollable an environment for Reznor to create those delicate and abstract moods. At the Palace, the energy that flooded the start of each song seemed to drain away in the softer passages. The synthesized subtleties and intricacies came out subdued and flat, until the next outburst of dense noise gave them a charge.

The set opened with billows of smoke and a dramatic moment when Reznor, 28, clawed his way from behind a thick, plastic curtain. The sheet eventually opened to expose a starkly decorated stage set of fallen pillars, overflowing wads of tangled computer tape and a keyboard on springs that appeared to be floating. Extremely dim lighting gave the show a veiled, eerie effect.

Reznor--dressed in tight black shorts, a sheer shirt, fishnet stockings and rubber gloves--let loose hair-raising screams, then sang in frustrated, tense whispers. Though notorious for his maniacal stage presence, he didn’t cut loose at the Palace as he did in such famed performances as the 1991 “Lollapolooza” tour. Instead, he stayed in one spot, where he shook and occasionally fell to his knees.

“Head Like a Hole,” the best-known song from the 1990 album, was the highlight of the night, with the band’s recent club hit “Closer” coming in second. The solid beat of both tunes proved steady enough ground for the band to let loose and hit powerful climaxes without losing momentum.

* Nine Inch Nails plays tonight at the Palace, 1735 N. Vine St., at 8. (213) 462-3000. Also Saturday at Montezuma Hall, San Diego State University, 9 p.m. (619) 594-6947. All shows are sold out.