Korn Hosts Strangers Festival at MetaStadt

This fall, it will be 30 years since Korn turned the hard-rock world upside down with their self-titled debut: the Ross Robinson-produced album, which featured live installations like “Blind” or the bagpipe-slick intro of “Shoots and Ladders” with plenty of children’s songs, impressed with a previously unknown mix of low-tuned guitars, hip-hop-borrowed bass and Davis’s emotional abstraction, which offered up his most painful childhood memories.

What followed was not just a global triumph, but also an almost unmanageable number of successors, imitators and other evolutions of a sound that had died out by the turn of the millennium at the latest. But Korn persisted undeterred, despite some lineup changes, still filling decent-sized halls and arenas, and two years ago they brought their fourteenth album to their fans with “Requiem.” Despite all the signs of wear, there doesn’t seem to be a sense of satiation on either side of the stage.

That means for the Vienna show: at just 80 minutes, the journey back in time to the ’90s and back was on, with plenty of opportunities to shine early on with the massive “Here To Stay,” while the ADIDAS classic “Make People Dance” and the audience’s vocals were equally demanding. In any case, the strong performance, marred only by Davis’s vocals, which were perhaps a little quiet, demonstrated once again how targeted these jackets are on the dance floor – whether it’s new material like the incredibly catchy “Start Healing” or the F-word-inducing “Y’All Want A Single.”

When it came to the stage show, Korn played it safe and relied on frontman Jonathan Davis, who not only held onto a microphone stand designed by “Alien” creator H.R. Giger in a sparkling tracksuit, but also managed to quickly get the crowd on his side. With the eclectic audience reaction, there was a very harmonious mix of sci-fi utopia and witch forest, which provided little variety, while guitarists James “Monkey” Shaffer and Brian “Head” Welch were in great spirits, twirling their dreadlocks around the fretboard. Regular guitarist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizo would continue to be represented live by his supposed twin brother Ra Diaz.

Ultimately, it was the songs that burned from start to finish and underscored the intensity of the hits in Korn’s catalogue: great works like “Falling Away From Me”—now back in the original version without the extravagance that drummer Ray Luzier sometimes adds, thank you very much!—stood alongside supposedly informed advice in a dark “clown” style, as Davis brought his youthful persona, in all its isolation, into the present. It’s no coincidence that there are several of his studio recordings in which he appears as a young man, deeply shaken in the wake of a song, as Korn’s early albums in particular were marked by his spiritual nakedness.

But there was never really time to reflect or take a breather live. The two quick takes “Twist” and “Divine” included in the encore set once again showed the early ruthlessness of the group before the million-selling “Freak on a Leash” finally broke through. Korn had successfully brought the Strangers’ sound to the mainstream and had withstood immeasurable odds over the past 30 years. After a few lean years, they’re now reaping the rewards of their resilience. They’d be blessed if concerts like this (and albums as compelling as their latest) ever came to fruition.

(By Christoph Gressner/APA)

(Service – https://kornofficial.com)