KoRn Live in Hong Kong

Da Music Issue

(This is a personal recounting of going to my first nu-metal concert! Into the land of 15 year olds! If you’re looking for the review, it’s down there somewhere in the middle!)

Let’s be honest. I am 29. I only have a faint passing of knowledge of who Korn is. I can’t name one song, no clue how many albums they have had, don’t know when they came out. Except two months ago I was in my room on the phone and requested my friend to wait coz I just had to check out what was blaring from the TV, whatever it was, it was LOUD and I liked it. The video said, “Korn.”

So I was quite excited to go check them out when I heard they were going to have a concert in Hong Kong. Two of my friends agreed to accompany me. One woke up to the fact she had no idea what she’d gotten herself into and called a few days later.

“So what is this Korn thing anyway?”

“I got tickets already!” I panicked down the phone, “You can’t not go!!” I wailed.

“Yeah, Yeah. I know. I am just asking.”

I confessed, “No idea. Stuff kids listens to. Could be shit. Rap-metal, I think.”

She called again a little later, “Nu-Metal, they call it. They have bagpipes!”

“Bagpipes?”

“Hmmm.”

“Well, we can just go and watch little boys beat each other up, that’s always fun!!”

“Never been to anything like that.”

“Oh, it’s great.. the atmosphere itself is worth it.. em… are you going to change out of your suit before we go? I mean, otherwise I would feel I am going with my mom or something.”

“I am not stupid. I am bringing baggy khakis.”

“Good.” I sighed with relief.

—

Immediately as we arrived at the convention center, a sight of girls in heavy make up, fishnet stockings, platforms and purple hair bombard us. I looked over at John, “Dude, they’re like 12! You can’t check them out!”

He blushed.

“They are probably more like 15.” I said, to cover myself.

“I know they would think I was a sleazy old man… that coz I remember when I was a teenager and these guys who hit on my girlfriend… When you’re a teenager, anyone over 19 is old… People say we still look young, that’s until we stand next to the real young ones. That’s when you know.”

A bunch of even smaller kids in baggy pants and dark hoodies tore past us like lunatics. Puberty had yet to reach them. “I think we could have given birth to that lot!”

“For sure. They really are twelve,” Amster replied.

The floor was shaking already as we went in. A mass of kids in the front were bopping up and down some with their arms in the air. Sounds enveloped us. My ear rang, Amster grimaced. John’s eyes went wide with happiness, “Hey, it’s King Lychee!” I yell, “They linked to my site! Coz Riz liked my politics! They’re really GOOD! Cool! Go King Lychee! Go Riz!!!!!” Hard core in Hong Kong!”

They rocked. Assaulting, Loud, Fast, they took on the room like the main act. Not often you see a Hong Kong band with such presence, I felt a little proud, I made note to myself that I must buy their new album and catch their shows more often. The place was going off already.

They were followed by a second support band: Paul Wong’s. He was an eighties rocker guy, used to be in Beyond. It was okay, not really loud enough or heavy enough for this crowd of youthful kids. Felt a little dated and didn’t go down as well as King Lychee, coz, well, King Lychee was very very good after all. They could have played the whole two set and we’d all be happy.

Then silence. Lots of milling around, whiffs of smoke eminent from little pockets here and there. Amy and I found a section by the bathroom that was curtained off and we went to do cartwheels, then laid down the middle of the huge space and read her poetry. After about an hour the lights finally turned itself down, and Korn was on their way.

Then the band simply walked on and started to play. Just like that. No fuss. No shouting or screaming, no one announced them. I liked that. Just start the gig and we’re already there. I hate chit-chat.

John, excited to hear some hard rock dived into the front and we promptly lost him. Amster and I decided to stand right behind the speakers a few feet behind the mad kids to experience the bass, not sure if that’s a metal thing, but definitely a raver thang. I looked over to the right, standing there was a couple of acquaintances with parental duty. I was very surprised, “What are you doing here?” I screamed as he looked at me blankly. He pulled out an ear plug.

“Don’t tell me you’re a big fan of Korn?” I shouted again,

He smiled, “No, I just heard some noise and decided to check it out.”

“Yeah, us too.”

Without any prompting the lead singer went mad and started to head bang with thick corn rolled hair down to his back and growled into the mike, what he was singing I had no idea. I sneered at the sound engineer -although largely it’s not his or her fault. The hall was made for exhibitions and not an auditorium. Ridiculous as it sounds, Hong Kong does not have a good mid-size venue for rock concerts. All government run spaces do not allow standing room.

Korn was not a visual band, a few lights here and there, no multi-media, no flash. But at times a shadow the singer was cast onto the side of the stage due to the spot light and he looked like some monster ready to duel with Godzilla and might give him a good fight. The drummer sweated on his podium shirtless. One of the two lead guitarists strutted stage left with a mass of brown dreads. There were two or three other guys in the band and on stage but I couldn’t see them well. Tattoos covered them all.

The sound improved after a few songs thankfully, and we began to take up and be caught by the “Rrrrrrr” of Jonathan Davis’s voice and the musical attack. People either hate it or as us metal/punk/rock fans know, you’re there to be beaten up metaphorically, let your soul bleed a bit, get aggressive for no reason and let it all go. Admit that, and you’re part of the aural blip at whatever moment, a collective roar of displeasure in a contained and actually enjoyable way.

Amster and I go up and down with the rest of the kids. There is a name for that, it’s called Pogo, named after the pogo stick, started around the time of the Sex Pistols. Can’t dance to the stuff but you still want to move. So jump. Jump hard, jump high. Jump. Those with extra energy make it an art form, legs spread, bent, arms crocked, flip your torso in the air. Here in HK where we’re a little reserved, we just go up and down.

Bounce to the beat. It helps to see the band over the sea of heads too. Push your hands in the air and make a throwing movement. Chuck your energy towards the band. The Satanic symbol with the two fingers and a thumb flashes over and over. People yell, clap, holler. Every time we hit the air for a second you catch a glimpse of what you’re part of, a mass of heads and body throbbing, a mass in unison, worship and adoring at the angry rock gods before us.

I was surprised as the music wasn’t as heavy as I imagined it. I was expecting and probably could have taken a heavier set without too much trouble, but it’s probably best, no one dies in their most pits and as they don’t push it too far. The songs didn’t build and build until the crescendo of out-of-mind-violence of the metal I knew. It’s Jolting in a new way. Breaky. Still fast, still LOUD but with a down tempo. Hard, Soft, Build, Slow repeat three times all in one song. Jonathan Davis shout-rapped into the mike he is clenching, as well as wail-growled. David Silveria’s beats have a lot of changes, not a constant whack-kill, and within the metal and rock rush, his soul is groove. Aggressive speed hip-hop in moments, the occasional reggae tempo slipped in rather than roll after roll. James ‘Munky’ Shaffer’s and Brian Head Welch riffs were short and to the point. None of the sprawling Zeppelin stuff between the two of them and I was sure they let a Spanish combo slide in a song or two at the intros. Fieldy Snuts the bassist somehow seemed more funk than metal as he is even there and you could hear him.

Korn is after all is a Bakersfield/LA band, they couldn’t but bring in what they know. People forget how Latin Southern California is. How it was Mexico once, how that music is everywhere. Having said that I just read the lead singer has a penchant for Duran Duran. So Korn was mellow in their own way because within the hard stuff, hip hop influences was there somewhere, although not as obvious as I make it sound, so maybe I should say subtly there, informing what they make. That is if you could use the word “subtle” for a band like this. Whole new take on the old. I guess this is why people came out and called it nu-metal. But the name seems a little odd as to me the band sounded harder than the Chilly Peppers, but more that way then Metallica.

However subtle was not a word one can use for describing the lyrics. References of enslavement and cages, a la Rage Against the Machine, and Smashing Pumpkins, but not as poetic. They don’t bother to hide it. The words were simple, straight forward, just there, songs about hating oneself, who-do-those-people-think-they-are and I-am-just-me and you-won’t-leave-me-alone, a la all rock bands every where. I couldn’t hear very well, but the kids in the audience knew the words for sure, and nothing gets yelled back without the combination of the word FUCK thrown in.

“FUCK (something-something)” the lead singer scream and poke the mike at the crowd.

“FUCK (something- something)” the kids shout back

“FUCK (Something- something) and YOU!” The place goes off.

As usual there is nothing like “Fuck –whatever it is, the government, parents, those fools who pick on us etc. and YOU- to get the place going. It’s obvious why Korn is pretty huge.

We eye the mini-mosh pit. I looked at Parents-with-Toddler-at-Home and I pointed at our bags, he nodded and Amster and I dashed towards the boys. We ran up, watched, jump up and down and push the straggling ones back in the pit and laugh. What caught our eyes was somehow though the insanity was one kid so involved in the music, he was standing there with his eyes closed, doing the full body shrug untouched by the others while another frantically took photos of the band, his friends, himself, as others careen around them.

A moment of softer music came on, the group of shirtless or black T-shirted boys melted away, and we skipped closer to the railing, just in time to see the lead singer play his bagpipes, his dreadlocks, tattoos in tow walking up and down the stage. He was playing notes with the instrument -metal songs on pipes. No idea of he was any good, but it was very cool. A young girl smiled at us, we smiled back. There were hardly any women in the whole place, up front where we were just the three of us.

Then after a bit we’re back to the loud stuff. The circle pit expanded again, and these boys launched themselves from everywhere. We hopped with them for a while but their youth was undeniable. That pulsating-vibrant-testosterone-mixed-with-teen-rage-energy so there, so full, and forceful, practically touchable, definitely made itself known, compounded by the smell of sweat. My level of life force bumped softly against theirs as it smashed back towards us and there was no match. You know your age, when you stand next to them, just like what John said. Amster and I head back to our bags.

Even there floor vibrated, the drums shot through us, there was no escape but it’s not a loud enough unless that is the case. Then the band brought us to a dramatic slow song with the reverb turned up high and the water in our bottles pop up and down. Amster said, “My deaf friend used to listen to music this way.” And we both held the bottles close to our chest, and the marrow in one’s body quake with the sounds.

At the end of that song just as the crowd threw itself in the air again, I launch my water bottle and watch the arc of water fly through the air, and land on a short dreadlocked kid with highlights.

Two boys one on the shoulder of the other run past to join the mayhem. We were impressed somehow they managed to jump over our bags and land on the other side without breaking a neck and kept running through the dense crowd until they got front and center. Amy threw her bottle at them, and “pow,” clocked the top one right on the back of his head. We jumped up and down, and high fived, squealing.

“I am really short sighted.” She screamed in my ear. “I can’t believe I got him!”

“I hope he’s not hurt!”

And before we finished the exchange another one went flying, right into his head again.

Korn gave into another song and another, and Jonathan Davis rapped-shouted my favorite line of the whole evening, “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Thump Thump!”

“Thump, Thump?”

“Thump, Thump!” Amy nodded.

“Fabulous… Hey fuck you.” I screamed at the band,

“Fuck YOU,” Amy yelled at me.

“FUCK YOU!” and I pushed her arm, and she pushed me back as we laughed and a few kids looked back over at us.

Not to be out done, the lead singer roared, “You can go SUCK MY DICK and BETTER LIKE IT!”

The audience responded with, “Yeah!!!!” More flashes of the metal salute and hands shot up. Then Davis told us all to put our hands in the air, and we did. That or suck his dick, I suppose. He told us to clap, and we all did over our heads. The crowd goes up and down, the place shakes, the speaker continues to push at us, and bits of silver paper falls from above as the heads and hands tried to catch it.

“Fuck THIS, Fuck THAT. FUCK This, FUCK that.”

“FUCK THIS, FUCK THAT!”

Then somehow it was the end, and Davis addressed us for the first and last time of whole night, “Thank you very much Hong Kong, it’s a pleasure to play for you.”

And the place continued to clap and shout as they left the stage, so they stayed for a minute or two bowing, waving, shaking hands, throwing the drum sticks. One of the guitarist picked up a piece of red and blue paper crumpled it up, and chucked it to a mass of kids grappling for it.

As I watched the band leave, I said to Amy, “You know who is older than the two of us here for sure?”

“Who?”

“The band. They looked like they were in their late 30s. I don’t know how they do it. This is not an easy concert to play. My legs are already aching,”

“I know what you mean,” she said.

The phone rang, it’s John, “Hey, Man what a great show. My hair was standing on the ends, it was so loud, you can feel it all over, like your dick is buzzing.. em.. you know what I mean?”

—

PS. King Lychee is My New Favorite Hong Kong Band!