Words by Gordon Lamb and photographs by Mike White
Even though Los Angeles-via-Bakersfield, CA’s Korn has been through Georgia multiple times over the past 30 years, including one notable stop in Athens back in 1997, the only other time I’d seen them before this night was at the Phillips Arena on Apr. 13, 2000. That’s both a show I saw by convenient accident as well as a date I had to actually look up because I couldn’t remember. This night on Monday, Sept. 16 in Alpharetta, they were on their 30th anniversary tour. When I first saw them way back when, that was my first real exposure to what was really being sold to the most diagnosed and medicated ADD generation yet. From the first note of the first opener to the last note of Korn’s headlining set, the entire arena remained darkened while incredibly violent and disturbing cartoons were displayed on a huge stage screen. The intensity never let up and only got more and more tightly wound. By the time Korn took the stage the crowd was, kinda rightfully so, ready to explode.
This night out in the suburbs, things were decidedly more relaxed, but even then still very far from what one might call a picnic. Korn is currently on tour with France’s Gojira, who the man on the street may only know from their performance during this Summer’s Olympic opening ceremonies in Paris, but who have been thrilling metal fans for nearly as long as Korn itself. They also brought along Canadian band Spiritbox, and since Mike White was nice enough to shoot this entire show, I promised him I’d mention these folks who I had not planned on covering at all. So, let’s get that out of the way.
The moment singer Courtney LaPlante mentioned how glad they were to be on tour with the other two bands she said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Every note of music we play wouldn’t exist without those guys!” And I suppose that’s a cool way to say thanks except, good Lord, I’d hate to be accused of being an influence on Spiritbox. There’s just no way to categorize their particular style of melodic-metal-death growl pastiche other than to call it Pro Tools rock. Everything they played sounded like it came from a sound bank and was just pieced together by a producer. Yes, they were as polite onstage as a group of Disney concierges, but with a lot less personality. If Mike had been shooting on actual film, I would have mourned the money he wasted.
Now, Gojira cleaned house quickly, efficiently and with a mighty wave of its fist. This was my second time seeing the band in the past 18 months. Opening with 2012’s “L’Enfant Sauvage,” it was as if Gojira was purifying the stage with fire. Enormous bursts of flames, shaped more like rockets that mushrooms, went off continuously and were timed perfectly to the beat. It was a lot cooler than I’m making it sound because I don’t know that many ways to describe stage pyrotechnics. Then they reached even further back to 2008’s “Toxic Garbage Island,” and the band’s technical metal skills came right out front. As best I can tell, Gojira first played in Georgia as the first act on a four-band bill at The Masquerade almost exactly 17 years ago (i.e. October 2007). Now, I’ve seen ’em twice and, this honestly very rarely happens, wish I’d seen them at many more of these occasions when they came through our area.
I was excited to see Korn, and that’s a sentence I never really imagined I would write, but my anticipation grew over the few hours from arrival to the band’s set time. Korn has steadily released music their entire career, and this tour was no mere nostalgia-based cash grab. The band has release 14 studio albums in the past 30 years and is still writing and recording. By comparison, R.E.M. released 15 studio albums in its 31-year career. I don’t know if I really want to write a sentence that purports that R.E.M. is about to be lapped by Korn, but I certainty have one in mind. Like I said, this was no oldies tour but Korn didn’t offer anything created relatively recently until their seventh song when they played “Start The Healing” from 2022’s Requiem.
Before then, they came out onstage with “Here To Stay” and then worked strongly and confidently through “Dead Bodies Everywhere,” “Got The Life,” “A.D.I.D.A.S.,” “Hey Daddy” and “Good God.” The next most recent song was 2016’s “Insane,” but even that wasn’t played until they’d caught up with their gathered people and had played “Blind.” “Ball Tongue,” “Clown,” “Shoots And Ladders,” “Twist” and “Make Me Bad” were played. They then finished out their primary set with the now 20-year-old “Y’all Want A Single.” Before they launched into it, they had the crowd put both middle fingers in the air and prepare themselves for the sing-along chorus’ refrain of “Y’all want a single, say fuck that (fuck that)/ Fuck that, fuck that (fuck that).” OK, so it’s not Wordsworth, but it’s one of the most poignant, direct-to-fans criticism of media consolidation, the then-current prohibitive costs associated with music video promotion, the music industry’s persistent and demanding knee on the neck of all artists including the most successful, the major label system as a whole and corporate rock radio. Yeah, it’s not polite, but I’ve never seen a crowd as fully responsive to this stance as I did this night. Not even during the most hardcore of punk shows I’ve ever been to. But this wasn’t, say, a Rage Against The Machine-type stance which, for better or worse, always seemed to come from a learned place of intellectual reflection and analysis, no matter how aggressively delivered. Korn is much more down to earth. Like its namesake crop, it’s literally in the dirt, and this song doesn’t take a reflective role at all. It’s a defiant burst of anger from the band directed at the hands that both fed it and juiced it. The industry that always has one hand in its artist’s pocket while the other hand is making a peace sign. And I do believe that’s the only use I’ll ever have for an Alanis Morisette lyric.
They even played fun with the audience for a few minutes before they came out for an expected encore. On their stage screens, they kept asking for more noise, teased the crowd for several minutes that they weren’t loud enough, etc. It was really corny, pun intended, and both the band and crowd were in on the joke. Then they came out and finished up with a three-song blast of “Falling Away From Me,” “Oildale (Leave Me Alone)” and the highly anticipated “Freak On A Leash.” Missing only one original member, but lacking for nothing onstage, Korn was charged up, engaging and still prepared to go the live distance.
But, you know, no matter how much I’d come around to these dudes this night and honestly enjoyed their set, there’s still no way this music was made for guys like me. You know, snobs. When the group first appeared on anyone’s radar outside decades ago, they were simultaneously cheered and mocked for being the folks who, for all practical purposes, invented that then-new genre of nu metal. At the time, it was like Kurt Cobain had just died, and then all of the sudden here come these upstart kids who 1.) have no roots in the punk/hardcore or even basic alternative scene, and how the hell do they have a record deal already? and 2.) they don’t even seem to respect metal—as it was then understood—well enough to play by its rules. The music press at large, and in the underground, had a great time getting a good laugh out of these funny boys who weren’t really upsetting the apple cart, so to speak, but completely sidestepping it as if it didn’t exist. They went directly to their fans and stayed on the road basically until they went platinum and then stayed on the road some more. Their loyal followers were also roundly made fun of at the time. They were essentially treated like they were hard rock juggalos whose entire culture was born at some mystical three-way intersection between Walmart, Hot Topic and Tractor Supply. Now they’re all solidly middle-aged, and many had brought along their kids to the show.
A few days ago my friend Paul Nunn, former Athens musician with several bands, posted a statement about how he had overheard someone mocking The Bee-Gees and disco in general, and this caused him to say, “It made me wonder what weird programmed hangups I could stand to take a second look at in 2024.” This was on the day after I saw this show, and it got to me because he’s right.
At its elemental level, away from scene politics, rules, fashion, etc. there’s so much about Korn’s music that is only ignored because of its messenger. I’m willing to bet any honest person 20 bucks to tell me convincingly that if Jonathan Davis’ nonsense, guttural scatting were delivered by, say, Swans Michael Gira that there wouldn’t be a positive NPR review of it. Further, if JG Thirwell (Clint Ruin, Foetus, et al.) had scraped out the same type of sometimes noodle-y guitar punctuated with the exact same metal riffing, it would be noted positively in his extensive discography.
I dunno, man. I guess my point is that sometimes you have to ask yourself if what you think is bullshit is really only such because you’re not really its audience. That, of course, cannot be entirely true because that stance gives a free pass to anything outside your own specific wheelhouse and reduces an audience down to being merely a target market. But there is most definitely something to be said about ingrained biases, judging the messenger, and—especially among those of us who have voluntarily subjected the world to our non-stop opinions for years—refusal to allow for any similarity or connection between what we hold as important cultural markers and that which is smirked at as low-brow and less-than.
I was never a huge fan of Korn, and I’m still not really. But after tonight, I feel like I finally better understand where they’ve always been coming from and look forward to catching them again.
Spiritbox
Gojira
Korn
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