It’s not every day you see huge mosh pits erupting metres away from a family pedal boat attraction, but that’s the charm of Scarborough’s Open Air theatre. “Lemme hear you!”, Korn frontman Jonathan Davis shouts, as the Californians bring out the big guns early with Here to Stay – the Grammy-winning song’s hulking, downtuned riffs shake the theatre – and ADIDAS, an acronym for All Day I Dream About Sex.
Released in 1997, the latter’s lyrics (“I will always be that pimp that I see in all of my fantasies”) have aged like milk, but Davis performs tonight wearing an Adidas tracksuit with glittery green bottoms and it remains an apt outfit. The band deliberately set themselves apart from heavy metal and were credited for pioneering nu-metal, with its greater emphasis on rap and hip-hop elements.
The dreadlocked singer generally has two dispositions: fevered brooding and guttural rage. But the way he harnesses his voice as an instrument – committing entirely to those idiosyncrasies – is impressive. Freak on a Leash is drenched in dark energy, and during the breakdown, Davis’s frenzied, nonsensical scatting demonstrates why it remains their biggest song.
A drummer as proficient as Ray Luzier would be the heartbeat of any band, but in Korn he’s paramount: his nifty, off kilter fills inject colour into the band’s sometimes lumbering style. It’s a tough break for Luzier when hard rain starts to fall seconds before his solo spot, momentarily dampening spirits. Tougher still for the British Sign Language interpreter who isn’t under shelter; on Good God, you would imagine it’s a rarity for him to sign the lyric “Won’t you get the fuck out of my face, now?”
“Y’all are nice and wet, huh?”, Davis asks, but even in this unique and challenging setting, they’re effective and efficient, stomping through an 80-minute set with minimal ceremony. Nuance is also rather lacking in these shuddering, mosh-ready songs, but more than three decades in, Korn are still compelling and undefinable. To them that might be the greatest compliment of all.
• Korn play The Piece Hall, Halifax, on 9 August and Gunnersbury Park, London, on 11 August
