Gig review: Korn at First Direct Bank Arena, Leeds

The seasoned American nu metal band celebrate three decades since their first album.

As an now 43-year-old elder metalhead, the 13-year-old in me has gone from having issues to now having family values, how quickly 30 years have passed since Korn’s Life Is Peachy album was handed to me by a friend at high school.

From the outset of their blinding set at the First Direct Bank Arena in Leeds, I was transported back decades to a time when MTV2 would play Freak On A Leash on a loop alongside the bands other Nu Metal contemporaries, a genre tag that was mostly unfairly ushered upon the band when they released their All In The Family collaboration with Limp Bizkit.

Korn, who have sold more than 40 million records and are on their first UK tour in a decade, have always had a more danceable and funky edge to them with the groovy rhythm section that has endured and continues to fill metal nightclub floors to this day.

All the rage of Jonathan Davis was cut through with such a bass tone as to get fans headbanging and simultaneously two-stepping like baggy jeaned 2-Tone fans.

Korn twisted through their set with some early album cuts such as the nursery rhyme laden Shoots and Ladders and the NSFW single A.D.I.D.A.S. Celebrating three decades since the aforementioned Life Is Peachy, the band also tore into their classic ’90s hits Got The Life, Make Me Bad and my personal favourite Twisted Transistor.

A band looking completely untouchable in their live environment, proving the band has still very much got the life within them. Were you ready? Leeds certainly were.

SETLIST