•
Rating: Yes, that was a real f***ing festival!
The headliners were Korn at the peak of their popularity, thanks in part to a killer album like "Take A Look In The Mirror," and the other bands were great, especially Extrema, Soulfly, and Ill Nino. Not even some out-of-place names (HIM primarily) managed to ruin the show. It was one of the best concerts I have attended, along with the recent June 14, 2007, at the HJM in Venice.
If I remember correctly, there were really a lot of people in Bologna, at the Arena Parco Nord, mostly metalheads there for Korn or Mötley Crüe fans there for Nikki Sixx and Tracii Guns' band, Brides of Destruction (and also, unfortunately, the usual fans of Ville Valo and HIM), but let's go in order.
Opening the show around 2:00 PM as replacements for the defunct Backyard Babies were the local Guilty Method (Rating: 7), a band I didn't know but enjoyed for their desire to play and warm up the crowd for the big names. What particularly interested me was the song "Father," an expression that Italian metal is alive and well, quite good from a technical and scenic point of view. But if we're talking about Italian metal, the Extrema (Rating: 8) must necessarily come into play, with their great entertainer GL Perrotti, an excellent singer and outstanding leader, obviously together with great music, Italian heavy metal ready for all of us. The show was perhaps a bit penalized by the timing and the too limited time available for a band like Tommy Massara and company. The following Life Of Agony (Rating: 4) can instead be quickly dismissed; they appeared dull and lacking any desire to play their mix of hard rock and thrash metal, a real shame because very good pieces like "Through & Through" are always a pleasure to hear. Equally poorly chosen was the presence of the Vicentini Mistonocivo (Rating: 5.5), not so much for the proposed genre, Italian rock owing to Litfiba and Pelù as a solo artist, but for the context and the other bands that would have played that day. Nonetheless, perhaps they would have been more appreciated in a different context. A great concert instead was that of Ill Nino (Rating: 7.5), one of the best nu-metal realities that even today, three years after the event, has resisted and has not sunk like most crossover bands that emerged towards the late '90s after the explosion of Korn, Deftones, and Limp Bizkit. They played very passionately, intensely, and powerfully, with their best songs from "Te Amo...I Hate You" to "How Can I Live" passing through the cover of "Eye For An Eye" by Soulfly (who would later take the stage) and the concluding "Liar". Good pieces and certainly good music.
In 2004, if you wanted to see a concert in real '80s rock 'n' roll style, you definitely had to come to Flippaut to hear the Brides Of Destruction (Rating: 8), a supergroup of rockstars boasting within it legends of hard rock and sleazy-style like Nikki Sixx (bassist of Mötley Crüe) and Tracii Guns (founder of Guns N' Roses and leader of L.A. Guns). A flawless but incredibly gaudy performance with songs from their then-upcoming first album like the punkish "Shut The Fuck Up" or "I Don't Care", but covers of the Crüe couldn't be missing either. In fact, very expressive were "Live Wire" and the huge "Shout At The Devil", very tough and hyped up. Another top-notch performance was that of Max Cavalera's Brazilian tribe and his Soulfly (Rating: 8.5), more and more an updated version of Sepultura from the "Roots" era. Max and his comrades wore Italy's suits in honor of our country, which the great Max loves, and we love him, the great Maaaaaaaaax. It was really a great show to hear people having fun and wanting to mosh to the notes of "Prophecy", "Living Sacrifice", or the great Soulfly classics like "Back To The Primitive", "Bleed" (with Max's son on vocals), "Seek N' Strike" from the album "3" and "Jumpdafuckup", not to mention when Max and his band played Sepultura covers, among which "Roots Bloody Roots" must be obligatorily mentioned, the climax moment of these f***ing Brazilians' entire performance. If you want to waste time in your festival away from great bands like Soulfly or Ill Nino, then hire in your bill the HIM (Rating: 3), undoubtedly the most overrated band of the last 3000 years, and then seeing those fans dressed in gothic-style for a shamelessly pop and so little gothic band is really laughable, really pointless to have them play there. I didn't hear almost anything of them except for at the beginning, the cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" performed decently, very forgettable.
After sending HIM home, finally on stage were the Korn (Rating: 10), who, in my opinion, recorded their best descent in Italy, no doubt, thanks to the compactness and monstrous sounds the band hurled at our faces and ears, and also thanks to a very good setlist where maybe two or three songs were missing ("Good God" and "Thoughtless" above all), but it was surely excellent. Jonathan amazed by growling many more parts of the songs in perfect "TALITM" style and made the best impression of the whole band, obviously also the others, still very united (Head was still in the lineup...sigh) and compact. They opened with two tracks from the then-new album, the very powerful "Right Now" and the very gritty and "Pantera-esque" "Break Some Off", very respectable openers suddenly followed by a great classic like "Got The Life", really sung by many of those present. Absurd moshing on "Here To Stay", increasingly bombarding and destructive, and ovations for the classic "Falling Away From Me", but surely the maximum adrenaline level was reached with the subsequent "Blind". It's always a certain effect to see Jon enter with the bagpipes and start "Shoots And Ladders", really well performed this time too, with the final part of "One" by Metallica attached, even more classics with "Freak On A Leash", the much-sung "ADIDAS" and the epic "Dead Bodies Everywhere", another piece from "Take A Look In The Mirror" with the single "Did My Time", great piece well interpreted by JD and all the others. Great "Clown" (one of my favorite Korn songs) and the gothic-tinged "Kill You", a mix of anger and violence all in one song, wonderful. Great also the encores with "Faget", the volcanic "Somebody Someone" and the concluding flaunting "Y'All Want A Single" with the many "Fuck That!" of ours and Jd obviously, I add that throughout the concert David behind the drums did not miss a hit and that the tracks from "Take A Look In The Mirror" then unreleased in Italy sounded really aggressive and very heavy.
Great Korn, they seldom come to Italy (and if they come it's just one date and often at festivals) but when they come they really know how to put a lot of meat on the fire and moreover, it was the last concert on Italian soil with the original lineup and thus a little piece of history for metal concerts in Italy.
Loading comments slowly
