Despite kids camping out in the rain on Manhattan’s Delancey Street, and a flurry of complaints online about the inefficiency of ticket sales, Nine Inch Nails’ first show of their “Wave Goodbye” tour on Saturday -- at the 500-capacity Bowery Ballroom -- was a fairly workmanlike affair.

Playing 27 songs in just over two hours, Trent Reznor (above) and crew jammed a tractor trailer’s worth of gear onto the relatively small Bowery stage, including several towers of strobes, and bludgeoned the fist-pumping faithful into gleeful submission. Highlights included a refreshingly chaotic thrash through early hip-hop-influenced track “Down in It” and a dramatic reading of “Something I Can Never Have,” with Justin Meldal-Johnsen on upright bass, as fans chanted along with every word. -- Charles Aaron

Read Aaron's full show review here .

Despite kids camping out in the rain on Manhattan’s Delancey Street, and a flurry of complaints online about the inefficiency of ticket sales, Nine Inch Nails’ first show of their “Wave Goodbye” tour on Saturday -- at the 500-capacity Bowery Ballroom -- was a fairly workmanlike affair.

Playing 27 songs in just over two hours, Trent Reznor (above) and crew jammed a tractor trailer’s worth of gear onto the relatively small Bowery stage, including several towers of strobes, and bludgeoned the fist-pumping faithful into gleeful submission. Highlights included a refreshingly chaotic thrash through early hip-hop-influenced track “Down in It” and a dramatic reading of “Something I Can Never Have,” with Justin Meldal-Johnsen on upright bass, as fans chanted along with every word. -- Charles Aaron

Read Aaron's full show review here .

Robin Finck grinds away, dreads awhirl, as Reznor gets in breakdown position, and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen doubles on synths.

A startlingly buff Reznor leads the eager crowd in one of many moments of chanting and clapping.

Finck fingers furiously, though his solos throughout the night were kept to an economical minimum.

Amid blinding strobes, Reznor and friends "burn this whole world down" one more time.

Meldal-Johnsen manned the upright bass on the ballad "Something I Can Never Have" and instrumental interludes "La Mer" and "Gone, Still"

Reznor straps on a guitar and induces some devil-horned appreciation from the throng. NIN plays its final show ever in Los Angeles early next month.

Read Charles Aaron's full show review here .