The Capital Times MUSIC Monday, October 5,1998 jj I
Koßn, family give Philadelphia new concept of values
„ . „ . breath, Ice Cube, accompanied with a half
Staff Writer dozen grim reapers, pumped up the crowd.
He didn’t miss a bass-thumping beat. People
When I say family values, what do you were more than satisfied with his perfor
think? Church on Sundays, respect your el- mance. Just when you thought it was over..
ders, Thanksgiving at grandma’s? Well, not .it wasn’t. Believe it or not he covered tracks
any more! When I say family values, I’m talk- from his old crew, NWA, by rocking the mike
ing about Orgy, Rammstein, Ice Cube, Limp with “Straight Outa Compton” and “F* *k the
Bizkit and Koßn. On Sept. 26 at the First Police.” I was surprised to see the building
Union Spectrum in Philadelphia, 15,000-plus still standing when it was all done,
gathered to witness, in my opinion, the best Shortly after, Germany’s Rammstein was
tour ever put together. up. I’ll tell you this much, you don’t need to
Promptly at be a fan to be
7:00 p.m., knocked off
Orgy took the your feet by
stage. Their these guys,
hard-core About two
sound defi
nitely gave the
crowd a good
warming up.
Ten minutes
after that, Limp
Bizkit took
over. The cur-
tains opened to Photo by Jesse Gutierrez strea ms of
reveal a flying Ra main’sfead singer brings new meaning to the term sparks sprayed
saucer that had enfuego. from his boots,
apparently crash landed on the set. But have while lasers shot from the stage soared above
no fear, no one was hurt. When the hatch the crowd.
opened the band made their way on to the That leaves one more band . . . room for
stage. These aliens did no anal probing. No five more dudes. Jonathan Davis, Fieldy
sir, they fed the crowd with what they wanted. Snuts, Munky, Head and David .. . better
“Counterfeit”, “Nobody Loves Me”, “Stuck” known as Koßn. I don’t have the words,
and of course their version of “Faith” were These guys were so amped, so intense. There
cranked. Along with songs from Three Pol- was no turning back. Opening with “It’s On!”,
lar Bill. YallS. Fred Durst and his crew cov- they never stopped. They covered all their
ered an old Ministry track, “Thieves.” bases. Along with “Got the Life”, “Dead Bod-
Before the crowd had time to catch their ies Everywhere”, “BBK” and “Justin.” Ice
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Cube joined them on stage as well to per
form “Children of the Koßn.” Fans of clas
sic Koßn were not deprived
either as the band ripped up
the stage with “Twist”,
“Blind”, “Ball Tongue”,
“Faget” and “Shoots and
Ladders” (Yes, Jonathan
was on the bagpipes)
The end of the show was,
without a doubt, something
every individual should wit- , Field Tour is still on the road,
ness before they go to the,r „ h , heirm w„h more dates to be an
boring grave. After exiting, nounced.
Fuel show hits home crowd
minutes into
the first song,
the man on the
microphone
burst into
flames. As if
Fuel has one of those names that seems to However, when guitarist Carl Bell an
have been developed by recording company nounced with the kinetic fretting of his gui-
A&R people to facilitate use of the cliche in tar, the familiar radio-play tunes such as
concert reviews. For example, “Fuel was on “Bittersweet”, “Shimmer”, and, especially
fire” or “Fuel ignited the crowd” or “Fuel “Mary Pretends”, this sonic youth crowd
burned down the house.” Well not me. No moved as one mass, giving themselves over
siree, you won’t find this reviewer falling to the group and allowing the rhythm to per
prey to the easy literary out. Rather, let me meate their souls. Yes, these are the sonic
say the Fuel/Badlees con-
that wasn’t
enough,
cert Sept. 16 at the York
Fair, was a spirited exhi
bition of youth dynamism
accentuated by Shellyian
(Percy) lyrics and lofty
chorale movements and
an appreciating, if not
ebullient, audience of
2,500 obviously loyal afi
cionados. Take that you
A&R guys.
Fuel, which calls Harris
burg it’s home, made a re
turn to this area after a
successful concert tour,
and just days after their hit
album, Sunburn, was cer
tified gold for sales over
500,000 units. And what
a show this was. Whereas
many acts who perform in
the outdoor environs of
the York Fairgrounds are
usually operating on an uninspired autopilot
(most geriatric-rock acts are notorious for
this), Fuel’s performance was anything but
paint-by-the-numbers. And from my vantage
at ground zero in the mosh-pit, this event was
a longtime coming for the concert-disadvan
taged Yorkians.
To be sure, they played their hits, but it was
the performance of their less known B-side
works that carried the night. In works such
as “Walk the Sky”, “Sunburn”, and “Jesus or
Gun”, Fuel exhibited their unique brand of
balladeer-punk stylistics. Until you’ve seen
and heard singer/guitarist Brett Scallions in
concert, it is truly hard to believe anyone
could ever vocally control the punk-scream
for pop-culture ears yet he does it with
remarkable skill. And what Scallions lacks
in charisma, he makes up for in a refreshing
By Victor Viser
For The Cap Times
Fuel guitarist and vocalist, Brett
Scallions, puts on a show for the
York Fair concert crowd.
the stage went into motion. It slowly spun
around. To reveal what? To reveal both Koßn
and Limp Bizkit all of
them, on one stage at the
same time! Together, they
Photo by Jesse Gutierrez
sincerity, almost bordering on politeness,
which directly connects with his no-frills
just-give-me-the-music audience.
from the great concert
guitarists of the '6os and
70s Page, Townsend,
Trower and especially, I
would venture to say,
Lifeson of Rush.
Along with the sub
stantial and precise bot
tom rhythm provided by
bassist Jeff Abercrombie
and drummer Kevin
Miller, Scallions and
Bell moved through a
repertoire of Fuel club
hits, including “Ozone”,
“Song for You”, and “Hideaway”, as well
as a couple of untitled tunes, all leading to
their encore a frenetic, double-time ren
dition of the Beatles’, “Revolution”.
But this was not the first Beatles’ tune of
the night. For the opening act, the Badlees
(too bad about their record company fiasco),
Photo by Victor Viser
after their own inspired performance of hits
and works, played the Beatles’, “When the
Rain Comes”, as their own encore. I must
say, while Fuel’s Beatles was great to see,
the Badlees’ Beatles was even better to hear.
Imagine. Two Beatles tunes by two popu
lar bands in the same concert. Are we post
modern, or what? More about the socio-ritu
alistic masculine mosh-pit culture in another
installment.
Victor Viser is a Humanities-
Communications professor at PSH.
closed the show with “All
in the Family”, a back and
fourth rage session be-
tween Fred Durst and
Jonathan Davis.
The Koßn Family Values
youth in a very real
sense. And Fuel re
sponded filling each and
every work with atten-
tion to detail that was at
once immediately en
gaging and fluidly dy
namic. There is no doubt,
Bell draws influence