Two rock giants Korn and Breaking Benjamin joined forces for a extensive 24 city winter tour, featuring special guest Bones from UK. The first concert took place in Allentown, PA, a city that is only a little over than an hour drive away from Breaking Benjamin’s hometown of Wilkes-Barre, PA. Needless to say that PPL Center which houses the American Hockey League team Lehigh Valley Phantoms was packed.
British rock band Bones opened the event, an eccentric female band who classify themselves as playing Future Rock, are stylish and provocative. Listening to their music you can taste a cocktail of psychedelic alternative rock with some pop elements. Bones have all the right ingredients to become big time stars and have just released last year their self titled debut album.
The home state heroes Breaking Benjamin who released an acoustic album called Aurora just now on January 24th came on stage next. The new album is their re-imagined acoustic take of most of their hits, and include quite a few guest appearances. The home crowd greeted them with loud ovations as they played a twelve song setlist which consisted from many fan favorites like Diary Of Jane, So Cold, Breathe and I Will Not Bow. Their stage visual style still stayed the same as from their recent Ember tour, with that album cover art being at the front center. Almost no spotlights, with few background lights, created that same feeling of angst and somber as their music.
Breaking Benjamin are known for inviting fans onstage. Last year in Holmdel, NJ there were two platforms on the side from which select fans watched the whole show and vocalist Benjamin Burnley invited children on stage during the performance. It was no different this time as a line of fans came on stage during the closing song I Will Not Bow.
As always the band were professional and flawless in their performance and gave home fans the best experience they could give.
Korn who are pioneers and probably the biggest superstars of the Nu-Metal style came up next. All stage preparations for their arrival were hidden behind a white curtain and as soon as the curtain fell Korn announced their arrival with hit song Here To Stay from the fifth studio album Untouchables. With the second song they kicked gears to the next level as they played their first mega hit Blind that brought them to the prominence all the way back in 1994.
From their latest album The Nothing which was release last year on September 13th , the band played only three songs – You’ll Never Find Me, Cold, and Can You Hear Me. As the bands vocalist Jonathan Davis said before playing new material, “We worked so hard on it, so here you go!”, this album also serves as a painful tribute to the passing of Davis’ wife and mother which reflected in the lyrics and created a sentiment of the darkness and grief in the album.
On the stage Jonathan was his old self with tremendous energy and charisma. He brought out his signature bagpipes before performing Shoots And Ladders which also included the outro from Metallica song One.
All of this madness was brought to the boiling point when the band performed arguably their biggest hit Freak On The Leash. Everyone from the band was fully immersed in the moment and it passed on to the crowd. At the climax moment when Davis screamed “Go!”, the venue exploded, there was no one left on their seats, as heavy metal euphoria reached it’s heights.
After a short break while everyone came back to their senses, Korn played four songs for an encore – 4U, Twist, Coming Undone and finishing the evening with Falling Away From Me.
The tour will continue until March 1st when it will end in Korn’s native state of California.
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Andris Jansons
Korn
Breaking Benjamin
