The Family Values Tour 11/16/01

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I had seen each of these bands before but Lucinda had not. It was just her and I at this show and we were able to get very good seats on the left side of the stage. Static-X had just released their second album Machine about six months before this show and had the material pretty polished by the time they rolled into Portland. Staind was touring behind their recently released album Break the Cycle. Staind is an interesting band to watch live because Aaron Lewis doesn’t move around the stage very quickly, no matter how heavy the song is. They did rock though. Linkin Park was also there still promoting their first album and played it almost in its entirety. Finally came the real reason we spent our Friday night at the concert, Stone Temple Pilots. They were touring for their severely underrated album Shangri-La Dee Da. Scott Weiland appeared to be drunk at this show but the band nonetheless put on a very great entertaining show. Scott thanked the people who had drinks with him at the strip club Mary’s the prior evening. During “Hollywood Bitch” they had a very slutty looking lady come dance around on stage only to reveal at the end of the song that it was actually a man. They had Chester from Linkin Park come sing a song with them at some point. The highlight was when Weiland started to rant about how rock n’ roll was stolen from all the black jazz musicians. He jumped out into the crowd and walked right through it to the very back of the arena all while ranting. The funny thing is that he didn’t have any security near him but nobody touched him. I think everyone was a little scared of the guy. The other thing that stands out in my mind is a moment when they left the stage. Moments later the whole stage revolved 180 degrees and there they were sitting on couches playing an acoustic version of the Beatles “Revolution.” Magical.

Limp Bizkit/Eminem 11/14/00

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I didn’t really start listening to Eminem until after I got with Lucinda. There are very few artists of this kind that I’m into but he’s definitely one of them. It’s like comedy hour set to phat beats. He was touring for The Marshall Mathers LP that had just been released in May. I remember him coming out in a Jason mask from Friday the 13th with a chainsaw and overalls. He lived up to his reputation as one of the greatest rappers to ever be. Papa Roach played before Eminem and they were alright but not as good as the first time I saw them. Then to close the show was Limp Bizkit. This was the third time I was able to see them. One of the big draws of Limp Bizkit for me is Wes Borland. I love the style in which he plays the guitar and he has an affinity for putting himself into costume for their performances. They had just released Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water about a month earlier. It has moments but I don’t like it as much as the previous two albums. One particularly memorable moment in this show was when I got into a scuffle. I was getting rowdy down on the floor in front of Wes and apparently a few people around me didn’t like that I was having a better time than them. There was pushing, which I thought was just friendly moshing, but at one point I turned around and there was a fist coming at my face. I ducked and laid a punch square in the face of my attacker. It was like slow motion after that for a second as the guy flew through the air. I turned back around to watch the show and tried to move out of the area a little bit but the next thing I knew I had about three people punching the back of my head. This time I was a little more successful at leaving the area and that was the end of it. Angry people at the Anger Management tour after people have been drinking? I know. Weird…

Korn 3/7/00

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It turns out all the previous crap I dealt with in the past to try to see Korn had been rewarded back to me in the form of good karma. I received the Issues album a few days before it was in stores because I had won it off a radio contest on KUFO. Then I won tickets to the show and a meet and greet backstage off the radio when they came to town to support said album! I had never previously won anything before so I was pretty excited. I enlisted Roscoe to be my “date” since I knew he would be the person that would appreciate meeting Korn the most. I really didn’t know what to expect but I guess I figured that we would get to be in a room with the members, have a beer and be able to shoot the shit with them for a little bit. Quite the contrary. They lined up all 10 of us winners and guests of winners against a wall backstage and one by one the members appeared and went down the line to sign autographs and that was it. I’ve never been a fan of autographs because anyone can write someone’s name on a piece of paper and say so and so signed it. This being said I didn’t get their autographs. Instead I shook their hand and said, “thanks for rocking.” Fieldy seemed annoyed that I didn’t want his autograph, David was way shorter than I thought he was, and Munky was pretty funny. He said something to the effect of “I just woke up” and actually did stay and talk longer than anyone else. The show itself was blistering. Staind opened for them and during the interim “Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation” played on a few very large screens. As you can tell by the setlist Korn played for quite awhile on this night. I don’t think anyone in the building minded one bit.

SETLIST: Dead, Falling Away From Me, It’s On!, Got the Life, Ball Tongue/Lodi Dodi, Twist, A.D.I.D.A.S., Good God, Trash, Clown, It’s Gonna Go Away, Shoots and Ladders, Freak on a Leash, Let’s Get This Party Started, Make Me Bad, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Somebody Someone, Faget, Kill You, 4U, Blind

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