Nostalgia ran rampant at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds for the second consecutive weekend, as Sick New World—the heavy metal fest featuring mainstays from the late-’90s/early-’00s—kicked off its inaugural year.
The one-day fest heralded the start of hotter temperatures in Vegas, and the dreadlocked, mohawked and leather-studded most certainly felt it. At the festival gates, iced water bottles were all but thrown to thirsty concert goers as they rushed inside, and many took refuge under Sick New World’s shaded structures.
Shirts started peeling off around 2 p.m. (even for the ladies) but that might’ve had a lot to do with Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix, who incited an apt amount of chaos at his midday set. “We got any old Papa Roach fans in this f*cking place? We gon’ take you back to the year 2000. Open this motherf*cking mosh pit up,” the frontman demanded. “Open up this f*cking dance floor!”
Moshers assumed formation, teeming with bottled energy as Shaddix shouted through “Dead Cell,” “Last Resort” and jumped into the crowd for “To Be Loved.” Fans were also treated to a special appearance by Hollywood Undead’s Funny Man, as he and Shaddix (accompanied by a saxophonist, of all things) rapped through “Swerve.” “Scars” revealed a more tempered side of the Papa Roach frontman, seemingly unlocking a core memory for a lot of concert goers because everyone, with as much pain as they could muster, screamed the song-defining lines “Go. Fix. Yourself!” Trauma bonding is what we call that.
Death Grips seemed to feast off that lingering energy to deliver one of the most intense performances of the day. Vocalist MC Ride exuded an unbridled carnality onstage, walloping the crowd with an aggressive — and very physical— display of energy that absorbed me. Sweat was pouring into this man’s eyes but he kept the show rolling. Kittie adopted this same level of shred on the Sick Stage with nimble fretwork that reinforced how great these guitar players are. The all-girl metal band also debuted a new song called “Vultures” to the excitement of a hundreds-strong crowd.
Lighter bands like Flyleaf, Evanescence, Chevelle and Incubus gave our ears a much-needed break— but in a good way. Scores of fans headbanged to Evanescence’s “Going Under,” a song vocalist Amy Lee said she’s been performing for 20 years now: “So, thank you guys for making that possible.” Lee’s haunting vocals, juxtaposed with the band’s gritty basslines, supplanted anything the studio versions could capture on tape — especially with “Bring Me to Life.” The crowd joined Lee in her final song, invoking a renewed sense of energy even as the sun blazed on.
Flyleaf’s Lacey Sturm reuniting with the band after 10 years made for a sentimental set that saw the small but mighty frontwoman roaring through “All Around Me,” “I’m So Sick,” “So I Thought” and “I’m Alive.” Chevelle got off to a rough start, but vocalist Peter Loeffler was quick to fess up: “I’m a little rusty,” he said. “This is our first show in eight months, but God damn it’s good to be here.” Once he loosened up, Loeffler’s whispery falsetto sounded on par with studio albums Wonder What’s Next and Niratias, and judging by the sheer size of the crowd, listeners weren’t disappointed.
Lastly, Incubus. Oh, Incubus. Brandon Boyd has never sounded better blowing through “Nice to Know You,” “Wish You Were Here” and the iconic closer “Drive.” Across the festival grounds, at different stages, the audience’s singing was audible. The band also slipped in a cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together,'' fully showcasing fill-in bass player Tal Wilkenfield’s grooving abilities.
Deftones’ turned the heaviness back up to 11 with an incendiary performance by Chino Moreno. My earplugs stood no chance against the frontman’s fiercely delivered vocals, and even after dousing himself in water, he carried on through cuts like “Change (In the House of Flies),” “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” and more. Crowd surfing naturally broke out here, as did circles and circles of mosh pits that primed the crowd for Korn.
I’d spotted the children of Korn throughout the day, from couples donning “Still a Freak” T-shirts to a family rocking merch from the band’s past tours (even the young tots). Sick New World bolstered the hype with a special Korn Coffee for sale, and local vendor Tacotarian offered Korn’s Here to Slay hot sauce as a condiment. But nothing could prepare me for the Korn field that sprouted at the main stage. The sheer throng of bodies packing in to see the nu-metal pioneers stretched hundreds of paces back, overtaking a quarter of the festival grounds.
Korn’s Jonathan Davis took the stage in a sparkling purple Adidas tracksuit, a fitting look for opening song “A.D.I.D.A.S.” Fans screamed every line of the evocative sex anthem, and that rowdy participation continued for “Falling Away From Me,” “Blind” and “Coming Undone” as the band performed behind lowered jail bars.
“You want to hear that old ’94 sh*t? We’re gonna play one from ‘96,” Davis declared, launching into “Good God” from Life Is Peachy. At one point Davis was headbanging so hard his dreadlocks whipped like lethal weapons. But fans were ecstatic to see the band having so much fun. “Look at all you crazy mothaf*ckas,” Davis said. “You’re crazier, bro!” one fan shouted back.
Sick New World as a whole was pretty crazy. This marks Live Nation’s third Las Vegas throwback festival, with Lovers & Friends and When We Were Young festival both returning this year. It's uncertain how long they can keep this train of nostalgia going, but we’re definitely enjoying it while it lasts.
