Korn, L-R: Reginald Arvizu, Ray Luzier, Jonathan Davis, James Shaffer and Brian Welch.
Don’t consider this a Korn review as much as an experiential trip to a Korn show. Let’s aim the time machine back to Saturday night, vehicle pointed downtown...
A CITY AT PLAY
There are plenty of folks with plenty of legitimate concerns about Downtown. But when there’s a large event taking place, like Bluesweek, and people are walking about and filling up the streets, there’s a nice energy. Those of us who find perverse joy in never paying for parking know the sensation when your expected five-block walk turns into 10; it just means that good stuff is happening and the big, public spaces are engaged. It’s a good feeling, really.
HELLO, OLD FRIEND
Some folks have magical memories of attending shows at the Kiel complex, on both sides of the wall. In the Auditorium, I saw a bit of Billiken basketball, and events like the WCW wrestling card that close the venue. The Opera House, though, never meant that much to me on a personal memory level. It’s possible that I graduated college from there (who remembers these things?) and there were occasional concerts, like R.E.M. and Mike & The Mechanics. (Don’t mock; free tickets.) Having not attended any events at the “new” Peabody, though, I had scant memories of the place.
But walking into the handsome, classic lobby, a few flooded back. The folks who put this spot together did a fine job. It’s a lovely enough venue, if it’ll always be cursed with not being as ornate as “wow”-ing as the Fox.
FOR OPENERS
Two acts supported Korn, one of them fronted by prodigal son Brian “Head” Welch. I walked in on the end of his set with Love and Death, the band seemingly enjoying a positive reaction from a half-full house. With a ticket that put me in orchestra pit row C (with C standing for “close”), it was fun to catch a couple tracks from his young band, even if the sound didn’t change my life. The closer, “Chemicals,” is built as a breakthrough-type track, with all the friendly, modern rock hooks you could want.
Then Device began. Fronted by David Draiman of “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor”-famous Disturbed, the group emerged as a scant three-piece, with a sound mixing liberal amounts of industrial into its hard rock formula; trying hard to please all camps, the group played hair-metal chestnut “Close My Eyes Forever,” and “Wish” by Nine Inch Nails, as interesting move in that Device thoroughly, shamelessly apes NIN, without having to play their actual cuts. The stripped-down group’s centered on Draiman, who stalked the stage, obscenely berating the audience for not getting into Device’s set; tired out by his personally-directed cutdowns, big chunks of the audience stood, falling for his sad, quasi-bullying tactics. The group was built, largely, to support the “Underworld” soundtrack, and that makes sense: the band write big, obvious, dumb rock riffs, howled over by Draiman’s big, obvious, dumb (if impressively delivered) lyrics. It’s not too often that you get to say “this is one of the worst rock shows I’ve ever seen,” but if you live long enough, those days do come.
KORN!
Can’t go without noting this first: Brian “Head” Welch is back. And with due respect to those who still pine over departed drummer David Silveria, Korn is basically whole. No more guitarists stashed away in upper corners of the stage, no more side players wearing animal masks; no more backing vocalists and medleys and other quirks. This was a straight-ahead rock show, 19-songs deep. There was enough material from the post-Head days to satisfy the crowd’s younger, later-arriving fans, while also a focus on the group’s golden age, with most of the hits represented.
This was, in short, a very fan-friendly show, without a lot of gimmickry or pomp. Instead, the body of the long, 16-song main set rolled from cut-to-cut, sometimes cut with short, electronic segues. Tracks like “Falling Away from Me,” “Did My Time” and “Blind” sounded fresh, despite the years; this is certainly thanks, again, to the Head influence, which has seemingly infused some major energy into the group. His guitar interplay with James “Munky” Shaffer’s impressive; always was, but the time off has made that more apparent. For non-fans, there wasn’t much to see here, but for fans (about 2,000 of whom semi-filled the hall), there was a lot to like, especially during the group’s three-song encore, which included crowd-pleasers “Got the Life” and “Freak on a Leash.” (Here’s the whole set.)
This was a great rock show. Such a shame about Device.
(Aside #1: My friend Derek works as a personal driver and assistant for touring acts. I wish I could share his stories about Korn, not because they’re salacious, but because they’re charmingly mundane. Hanging out with rockers isn’t always that exciting, but it’s always a bit interesting; I hope he’s writing all this stuff down, ‘cause hearing his tales were a hoot during the second set break. Speaking of which...)
(Aside #2: On his third beer, the fella next to me chatted me up about his friend, sitting one chair over. Seems they both work at Sports Authority and Munky walked in on Saturday to buy baseball knee pads. The buddy immediately knew who he was, getting Munky to sign his white iPhone. The cat next to me, though, was attending to someone else and missed the whole scene. Maybe that wasn’t big deal, since he didn’t know the music of Korn, not a bit. But he was impressed by the 15-feet-from-stage tickets that Munky passed out to his buddy, the real fan. It was a class, cool move. Good to hear these things, sometimes.)
LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT, 7-11 DIVISION
On the way back to my ride, I stopped by Downtown’s famed 7-11, at Pine and 17th. It was interesting trip inside, in that I was very courteously offered weed, but wasn’t panhandled. Stepping inside the place, my senses were greeted with the kind of human-inspired funkiness that you don’t always encounter. Yowee! (We advocate here for the return of at least a couple public bath houses; seriously, they’re needed.) After listening the comedy show taking place between customers and clerks, I bought my pretzels and tea and went on my way, as some of the Bluesweek fans did, as well. I hoped they had a fun night, too.
