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Live Review
by SashaS
8-9-2002
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| Korn's Jonathan Davis |
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Live: Korn
Docklands Arena, London
Saturday, September 7, 2002
Korn more than retain the nu-metal crown
Whatever contemporary metal has to offer appears to have originated with one band, Korn, although our live encounters have become infrequent: it is about every two years we get to experience this aural juggernaut in action in our backwater called ‘Ken’s mayhem’. And, things have changed quite a bit since the last visit: metal has been challenged by the new garage-type rocking kids who all sound like they overdosed on Velvet Underground and/or The Ramones, sales of heavy music have slowed down with not so many selling million copies and far from getting multi-platinum discs that was a norm just a few years ago, and the nu-contenders certainly don’t sound as genuine and as solid as the ‘old’ boys but sport more pin-up looks…
Korn have certainly taken almost two months to sell 1 million copies of their latest, and brill, album ‘Untouchables’ that sadly failed to top the Amer-charts (for the difference from the previous twosome). The title might sound pretentious – not as much as ‘Follow The Leader’, for sure – but it is more than true. Korn are still the kings on the nu-metal hill and can probably remain there as long as their public is receptive to the band’s sonic explorations… This lot have no time for their audience to grow out of the yester-sound.
The issue with nu-metal audiences is that they are young, hardly teenagers, full of untamed energy that can’t be vented any other way but by ‘turn-to-11’ music and gigs of ultra-intensity. Even the ticket warns, “Under 14’s to be accompanied by an adult/Proof of age may be required…” We haven’t seen (m)any being challenged at the door but they certainly looked l-a-m-b-ish!
Jonathan Davis leads his assemblage of reprobates into a show that is huge on everything: sound, energy, issues, entertainment. Davis is not a showman of, for instance, Marilyn Manson’s spectacle but a frontman who prefers to offer all he’s got, from the innermost parts of his being. One’s always had an impression that Jon never holds anything back and leaves nothing that can be called - spared. He sings more now as the songs from ‘Untouchables’ allow him but he still uses that menacing growl the old material requires: it is these songs that really get the fans going…
‘No Place To Hide’, ‘Good God’, ‘Freak On A Leash’ and ‘A.D.I.D.A.S’ in particular, all sound as fresh as the morning dew while the world’s collide, causing general pandemonium. This could be any year since the mid-1990s but it is the newer songs that remind us we are inside the XXI century. Korn certainly know it but it is doubtful their young fans care to share that belief.
The world might be having so many past and long-standing issues to resolve but there is only room for new (aural) pain in the Korn camp. That’s why they rule!
SashaS
8-9-2002
Korn’s album ‘Untouchables’ is available now on Immortal/Epic
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