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Monday, July 01, 2002

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

The horror in Jonathan Davis' lyrics is based on the everyday horror of life.

But Saturday night at the Mellon Arena, while the singer exorcised his inner demons on the mike and Korn unleashed its wall of noise with all heads banging in the sort of synchronicity I haven't seen since Michael Jackson's "Thriller," a screen above the action added horror-movie horror to the mix.

The show began with a film of a boy being chased through the woods with lots of heavy breathing, like "The Blair Witch Project" if the person on the camera didn't have the shakes. The kid eventually escaped into a giant house where, later in the set, he met a little blond girl playing Lizzy Borden with an ax. There was no shortage of blood and other mayhem in the footage, but it wasn't half as scary as the band itself.

Korn turned in a punishing set, from the opening riff of "Here To Stay," a song that somehow seemed more evil live than on "Untouchables." With Davis howling on about the elevating nature of his pain, the band unleashed a brutal dose of post-metallic funk with more bottom than J-Lo. And from that point out, the level of aggression rarely dropped, except in the creepier moments, which were, as you might imagine, pretty creepy.

As aggressive as the playing was, the most aggressive aspect of the band's performance was Davis' vocal delivery. The man was born to sing "I need to feel the sickness in you," a line from "Make Me Bad," which proved a highlight of the set.

On "Good God," he shouted the chorus of "Won't you get the [expletive] out of my face now" like a man possessed. The anti-social lyrics carried through into "A.D.I.D.A.S.," a song that found him raging, "I don't know your [expletive] name."

He's an excellent screamer, and he does the funny metal voices with a versatility to rival Marilyn Manson. But the band is at its best when a melody rises up out the chaos and rage, the way it did on the chorus of "Falling Away From Me." A track from "Issues," it remains the most inspired moment in the band's career.

That's not to say the Korn fans weren't just as excited to hear them revisit the MTV breakthrough of "Freak on a Leash."

Puddle of Mudd preceded Korn with a set that smelled suspiciously of old teen spirit. Imagine Nirvana if Ugly Kid Joe had been writing the song but Kurt Cobain was still the singer. It was dumb and loud and kind of fun, and they knew how to finish, observing the Sabbath with a verse of "War Pigs" flying out of nowhere in the middle of one of their own Nirvana soundalikes, a logical conclusion to their one-band tribute to the sound that made Seattle famous.