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Rating: I had never attempted a live report before, so after the recent concert on the first day of the Heineken Jammin Festival, I want to talk to you about a not-so-recent concert, but one I remember very well, especially the part about the headliners of that day, the Coca Cola Live At MTV, the Korn! Certainly, that time it was like a slap in the face to the fans, I mean Korn at the Coca Cola Live At MTV? Madness, but what can you do, the ticket price was very low, so we went to see our idols in Civitavecchia, despite the fact that the various supporting acts weren’t exactly our favorite bands.
I remembered the performance of the Super Elastic Bubble Plastic (Unrated) quite poorly; they were among the groups decidedly less suited to open a concert for a "Kornish" audience. Indeed, I barely followed the performance of a group that boiled down to doing everything the various American alternative/indie bands do, sometimes drifting into punk territory, avoidable then as now. Next up were the Linea77 (Rating: 7.5), ah... they really rocked, tracks like "Moka", "Fantasma", or "Ketchup Suicide" stirred me quite a bit, all accompanied by sounds that seemed quite good to me. The Italian-style crossover of Linea77 was successful, I remember, and sure enough, pogo and headbanging on the stage stirred up quite a bit of dust, but I only dived in with Korn. The performance of The Rasmus (Rating: 4), on the other hand, was conveniently shortened due to (very lucky for me and many others) technical problems and can be described in three expressions: pseudo dark-pop-rock commercial trash, bottles on stage, and boos against the band; some things have to be done! What was the organization thinking, having The Rasmus (who were quite famous at the time, but today where are they? Poof... vanished into thin air) play before a live band as destructive as Korn? Mystery of faith!
Faith that reignites only when JD, Munky, Fieldy, and David take the stage, our heroes Korn (Rating: 9) have finally arrived and they hit us with a "Here To Stay" that’s top-notch, though you can slightly feel the absence of the other axe-man Head, who at the time had just left the Bakersfield group, and indeed, this concert, I swear since I had seen them in 2004 at Flippaut, was very different from their previous Italian tours, but not less intense for it, an impeccable setlist featuring the greatest classics of the quintessential alternative metal band, indeed right after the opener there were the psychotic moans of "Twist", the catchy "Got The Life" (where I moshed like crazy) or the anthemic "ADIDAS" whose chorus was sung by all present. Jonathan Davis is an extremely capable frontman who knows how to hold the audience in the palm of his hand and the other band members are wilder than ever, as if to prove that even without Head they were capable of delivering a great show, and indeed, they more than succeeded. More classics with "Falling Away From Me", the growly "Did My Time", a little masterpiece from their then-latest album "Take A Look In The Mirror", and then Jon emerges with the bagpipes and heralds the start of "Shoots And Ladders," customarily appended for that occasion with a snippet of Metallica's "One," and of course, the following "Freak On A Leash" was spine-chilling, just like the band's personal rendition of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall," definitely the highlight of that marvelous concert, if I’m not mistaken right after that song the live TV feed was cut, but they fortunately didn't stop playing and indeed the second part of the show was just as spectacular, "Blind" was pure adrenaline, the seismic "Somebody Someone" incredibly intense with JD at the peak of his abilities, more throwbacks with "4U," the legendary song from "Issues" and "No One's There" directly from "Untouchables". Grand finale with all of us shouting "Fuck That" along with Jon to the notes of "Y'All Want A Single" and the final thanks in imperfect Italian from Munky (who kept messing up saying "Grazi" or something like that). Certainly seeing Korn at the Coca Cola Live MTV was the least suitable context but it was truly an out-of-this-world concert!
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