Gone entirely is the old sense of watching a man eat himself alive, but Reznor ripped through a crowd-pleasing retrospective delivering all the old numbers with no loss whatsoever in ferocity or emotion, but with the feeling that the whole project had been re-imagined and reclaimed by a new man — one who likes himself, loves his work, and who is trusting the raw fact of his own immense talent perhaps for the first time.

Where real desperation and filth once ruled Monday evening's opening salvos "Wish" and "Sin", here there was a sense of masterful theater in Reznor's howling rage and transgressive desire. Where tearful pathos once bathed "Something I Can Never Have," and Reznor squeezed and stroked himself in exactly the way he always has while singing it, there was a new effectiveness in his controlled performance that in no way undermined the authenticity of his genuine emotion, but instead strengthened it through undiminshed, and consciously intended performative commitment.

As for his new songs, I'll spare you the string of superlatives: they rule, and I can't wait for him to work more of them into the show.

For me, the most memorable moment came late in the second night's performance, as Reznor rocked his latest single, "The Hand That Feeds." At one point, standing back on the stage for a moment, Reznor looked out at the roiling tumult before him, all sweaty crowd surfers, raised fists and devil horns aloft, every voice raised in unison with his, and seemed to pause for a moment in his mind to really see it. Then, he smiled - just the tiniest upturn at the corners of his mouth - as if he were just in that moment taking in what he had wrought, and seeing that it was good, before baring sharp teeth and choking his somewhat battered guitar to pound his head-banging rock with renewed abandon, and what looked unmistakably like pure pleasure.

The notion that keeps blooming in my mind, more than any other, is that of Reznor's enormous generosity as a performer. I was struck by his respect for his own work, and for himself as an artist, and as an extension of that, for his audience.

There is no way that Trent Reznor would ever take the stage without being prepared to give it up with total commitment and savage seriousness. In saying that, I don't mean to say that he is humorlessly self-serious, because that widely-held misconception concerning the alleged relentlessness of his angst need to be put to rest in the worst way. I mean to say that, essentially, he truly and soulfully stands behind everything he does, and ever has done, with every single part of himself, and that is pure gold. You can't ask for more.

Reznor takes Nine Inch Nails on to a festival tour in Europe this summer before returning to the states for an arena tour this fall. If you know what's good for you, you won't miss it.