Up-Load UK, Gigs News & reviews Korn Kentish Town Forum

It was a cold winters night in London as we all stood outside waiting for the doors to open, The crowd slowly turned into human snowmen due to the delayed door opening and there were faint chants of ‘We want Korn’ along with the odd call of ‘Backstreet Boys’ which raised a giggle or two. Even though it was colder than the average household freezer the crowd were doing their best to stay in high spirits until eventually the doors opened and they all tried to get inside at the same time.

Once inside this very intimate venue the fans still had to wait over an hour until Korn came on stage. They were pushing through trying to get right up to the barrier for the best view of the show, their only consolation was that they were now defrosting due to the amount of people squashed together at the front.

Cheers were now filling the air with ‘We want Korn, We want Korn’ and it was obvious that the room was full of real ‘hard core’ Korn fans who had traveled from all over the UK for this special one off show and not even the sub arctic temperatures outside had dampened their spirits as they eagerly awaited the band.

As the sound of thunder bounced around the venue and through the floor you knew Korn were on their way, and as they took to the stage a huge cheer went up and they went straight into the classic ‘Here to stay’ (untouchables 02). The band had not lost any of their energy, Jonathan was bouncing around the stage and head banging at an alarming rate, with just the occasional pause for the fans to sing the words back. This resulted in almost every person in the place joining in and singing along.

Without hardly any pause they flew into another classic track, ‘Twist’ (Life is Peachy 96), and the crowd were bouncing around, with their hands in the air, clapping along with Jonathan. It really was very hard to spot a still body in the room.

The next track was ‘Got the Life’ (Follow the leader 98) which was received as well as the previous tracks with lots of ‘Devils Horn’ salutes, cheers and good, old fashioned moshing.

Munky then said to the crowd “We’ve got a new album out that you can get on December 5th , we are gonna do a track from it now, this is called ‘Liar’” (See you on the other side 05) and what a great track it was, it was played absolutely note perfect as the fans just stood and lapped up every second of this new material.

At this point the lights in the hall were turned on so that Jonathan and the band could see the crowd, and they played one of their most popular tracks ‘A.D.I.D.A.S’ (L I P 96). Once this had finished Jonathan said “ This is another song off our new record” and the crowd went wild when they blasted into ‘Twisted Transistor’ (SYOTOS 05) all the people on the upper balcony were standing up and jumping around and it is surprising that nobody fell over.

‘Falling Away’ (Issues 99) quickly followed and the crowd continued to jump, mosh and sing along to every word, the atmosphere in the room really was amazing. Loud screams could be heard as Jonathan said “ We are from California, born and raised and we are gonna do another track off the new album, we have never played this in front of a crowd in England or anywhere in the world, this is called ‘Coming Undone’” (SYOTOS 05). Once again the crowd loved it and tried to sing along with the words as the song progressed.

Munky was standing on top of the security rail at the side of the stage as they went into the next track, he was poking out his tongue and smiling and joking with the fans who were eagerly trying to touch him. ‘Did My Time’ (Take a look in the mirror 03) was played with the same enthusiasm as all of their tracks tonight and the crowd were by now very hot and sweaty and still bouncing up and down and singing along at the top of their voices, people were being dragged out of the pit at an alarming rate as it seems that everyone wanted to do a ‘surf’ tonight.

The stage went dark for a few minutes before Jonathan came back out playing the bagpipes, the whole room erupted and their voices nearly drowned out the instrument, he was walking up and down the stage and obviously loving the reaction he was getting from the crowd, a stage hand came out and took the bagpipes away as the rest of the band returned and they went straight into another classic track ‘Shoots and Ladders’ (Korn 95), this track may be over 10 years old but it obviously a huge favourite with the crowd as they are swaying their arms from side to side in the air, some with lit lighters breezing through the darkened light.

Suddenly the oh so familiar first notes started to play of (in our opinion) Korn’s greatest track to date, the awesome ‘Freak on a leash’ (FTL 98) with it’s great lyrics and absolutely brilliant mixture of trippy riffs and belting drums. The next track was a bit of a surprise, it was an absolutely brilliant cover of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ that they had previously released on their greatest hits album in 2004, this was executed so well especially when Jonathan kept pushing his mic towards the crowd and saying “Come on, you all know the words” as the crowd sing the chorus part for him throughout the track. Munky did a superb solo piece in the mid section of the song that floated around the room and filled it with his own unique sound. Jonathan took center stage again to end the track with the nice slow almost whispering ‘Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye’ then the stage was plunged into darkness and the band left.

The fans obviously weren’t happy to see them leave and soon began to chant and clap with the familiar ‘We want Korn’. Suddenly the clapping gets louder and faster and is joined by the sound of over a thousand stamping pairs of feet , and as if by magic, Korn reappear on stage. A huge cheer erupts and the band fly into ‘Blind’ (K 95) and the fans join in when prompted with the line “ What if I should die”, but one song was not enough for the band or the crowd as Jonathan said “Do you want to fuckin’ scream ?” and the crowd scream on command ! Munky said “This is another track off our new record, out on 5th December, it’s called ‘See you on the other side’ Mother Fuckers, and this is ‘Hypocrites’ ”

If this track and the other new ones we have heard tonight are anything to go by then we are in for a great album.

“Let’s have a fuckin party tonight” yells Jonathan and the crowd agree, “ I want to thank you all so much for coming out tonight to see us, this is why we’re doing this for you, We really we appreciate your support, I hope you know that ?. Now you’re gonna be pissed with me now, but this is our last song” the crowd then all said ahhhhh before Jonathan continued “ I want you all to put your fingers in the air with me and say ‘Fuck That’, after 3 …….. 1,2,3 “ and with that everyone stuck their middle fingers up in the air and shouted back “Fuck That” and the band flew into ‘Y’all want a single’ (TALITM 03)

All too soon the night drew to a close and the band left the stage for the final time. They may have only been on stage for an hour and a quarter, but they gave it their all in that time and covered something from all of their albums and made an awful lot of people really happy.

It was a really good show and because of the adrenalin pumping through most of the peoples bodies as they left they probably didn’t even feel the even colder wind that was blowing as they left the Forum.