Nine Inch Noize plays full set
The collaborative project Nine Inch Noize—Nine Inch Nails with Boys Noize—played a full set for the first time at Coachella this weekend, a milestone live appearance covered by Rolling Stone. (The show marks a rare, extended live outing for the pairing rather than a single cameo.) (rollingstone.com)
Nine Inch Noize played its first full set Saturday at Coachella 2026, turning a tour-side collaboration into a standalone live act. (rollingstone.com) The project joins Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails with German producer Boys Noize, whose real name is Alex Ridha. Coachella scheduled the set for 8 p.m. Pacific time in the Sahara tent during the festival’s first weekend in Indio, California. (rollingstone.com) (yahoo.com) Coachella’s 2026 first weekend ran April 10 through April 12, with a second weekend set for April 17 through April 19. The festival listed Nine Inch Noize on this year’s lineup rather than treating the pairing as an unannounced guest spot. (coachella.com) (rollingstone.com) That was a change from the way the collaboration had been presented on Nine Inch Nails’ Peel It Back Tour, where Reznor, Ross, and Ridha had been doing a shorter mini-set inside the main show. Rolling Stone reported that segment had become one of the tour’s highlights over the past couple of years. (rollingstone.com 1) (rollingstone.com 2) Rolling Stone said those tour performances mixed Nine Inch Nails songs including “Vessel,” “As Alive As You Need Me to Be,” and “Closer” with Boys Noize’s club-driven production. NME also described the Coachella appearance as the first-ever full set under the Nine Inch Noize name. (rollingstone.com) (nme.com) The booking also fit Coachella’s long-running habit of using the Sahara tent for electronic and crossover acts with heavier production. By putting Nine Inch Noize there on Saturday night, the festival gave the project a defined slot, a stage identity, and a crowd separate from a Nine Inch Nails headline framework. (coachella.com) (yahoo.com) For Nine Inch Nails, the set extended a period in which Reznor and Ross have kept moving between band work, soundtrack work, and side collaborations instead of treating the group as a fixed touring machine. Rolling Stone reported six months ago that Nine Inch Noize had become central enough to the Peel It Back run to raise questions about whether the collaboration would get its own festival debut. (rollingstone.com) By the end of Saturday, that question had an answer: Nine Inch Noize was no longer just a cameo inside someone else’s set, but a billed act with a full Coachella slot. (rollingstone.com)
