Two months before the release of their fifth full-length album, Year Zero, industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails began a new tour, officially called Performance 2007.

The production on this tour was minimal so the heaviest setlist rotation in the band's history occurred, covering about 50 songs from all their albums.

During a concert in Lisbon, Portugal, a USB flash drive was found in a men's bathroom stall containing an intentionally leaked high-quality MP3 of the track "My Violent Heart", a song from the then-unreleased album, Year Zero.

[3] On April 18, Nine Inch Nails fans received in-game telephone-calls in which they were invited to a "resistance meeting" in Los Angeles.

The former two[5][6] were played by Reznor, North and Cortini as a 3-piece, using a combination of live guitars and pre-programmed samples triggered onstage with computers and manipulated in real time using Ableton software.