Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Korn Live in Manila

I had to break this one up to a separate post because it plainly deserves a post of its own. This is about part 2 of the concert double header, Korn live at the Araneta Coliseum, last August 10, 2011.

Tired but still high from the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, Briggs and I took a short nap that afternoon when we got back to Manila from Hong Kong. Briggs drove using her Tucson. We surprisingly found parking near Araneta Coliseum fairly quickly.

We could really notice the difference from AsiaWorld Expo in Hong Kong and Araneta Coliseum. Araneta Coliseum felt old and was litered with throngs of security guards.

We made sure to buy Korn concert t-shirts already. The t-shirts were nowhere nears as nice in material and printing as the RHCP shirts we bought in Hong Kong. But then again, this is the Philippines after all. Again, we were definitely back in Manila.

The venue didn't fill up all that much especially between the lower box and bleacher seats up above. The hefty tickt prices were probably the biggest deterrent for a large audience attendance. The standing floor area below and the bleachers filled up quite nicely, however.

Slapshock fronted Korn for this particular concert, which was only fitting as that band was heavily influenced by Korn from the beginning. I was a fan of the band only on their first album back in college and lost track of them ever since. Below is a video of one of their old school songs that I liked.

"Agent Orange"


After Slapshock, this DJ sporting a midi trigger and Macbook came onstage mixing tracks from Rob Zombie, Prodigy, etc. Although he performed sufficiently adequate, the crowd didn't really get into his performance much. Poor guy.


Korn came on stage soon after and that breathed life back into the crowd. Below are videos of some of the Korn songs performed that night. Briggs and I were much closer to the stage this time around compared to the RHCP concert. So the videos I took were much clearer and the sound came out fantastic.

"Here to Stay"


"Shoots and Ladders"


Munkey had a guitar solo right before this particular song. And they medley-ed Metallica's One. I particularly enjoyed the classic bag pipes that Jon Davis pulled out. I've seen this so many times in videos. But never witnessed it live. That was totally awesome.

"Right Now"


I didn't even realize how big of a Korn fan I really was until I found myself singing the lyrics of practically all the songs Korn was playing. This was especially evident when fellow Korn fans around me didn't know lyrics of a good number of the songs performed.

"Somebody Someone"


The band really got the crowd into it with this song. Mid-song, Raz Luzier, the drummer, pelted out a heavy drum solo which was right up there with the band's style. Soon after, Jon Davis shouted "Manila, get yo fucking hands in the air! I wanna see those fists pumping!". That got the crowd hopping.

"It's On"


At this point, I just decided to stop taking video. Their last encore song was a run through medley of a lot of favorite Korn songs of mine.

Briggs and I, totally worn out, decided to head home after the concert. No concert after-party for us old fogies. LOL!

When I got home, I put my bag down and had a cigarette before hitting the sack. I was really exhausted, but totally content. I had enough strength to brag about my concert double header on Facebook, which garnered a lot of envious responses from friends. "Living the life" was the general comment by many Facebook friends. And that week, I certainly was living the life.


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