Every once in a while, there are concerts that take you by surprise with just how great they are. When the house lights turn on and the dust settles, you're left in sheer disbelief at what you just witnessed. The performance from infamous rap metal band Limp Bizkit at the House of Blues in Boston on October 10th was a textbook example of this rare phenomenon.
While Limp Bizkit was a pleasant surprise, I'd be lying if I said the openers were anywhere near as good. The night started with a set from relatively unknown house DJ Blvck Ceiling. Saying that Blvck Ceiling's low-key, often psychedelic take on house music went over poorly would be a gross understatement. The audience was flat out ignoring him and even started chanting for
Machine Gun Kelly-the show's other opening act- while he was still
playing. Even though I was mostly indifferent towards his music, I felt awful that he got such a cold reception from the crowd. Blvck Ceiling had some come beats from time to time, but was ultimately too stagnant to really resonate with me.
Machine Gun Kelly took the stage almost immediately after Blvck Ceiling finished. As I alluded to earlier, there was a ton of people there to see him. His fans showed up in droves, and proved just how rabid they were throughout the set with their relentless energy. Despite an explosive crowd reception, Machine Gun Kelly put on an incredibly lackluster performance. As an artist, Machine Gun Kelly simply can't decide on who he really is. He awkwardly shifted from ignorant drug rap to EDM bangers to "inspirational" songs about being yourself on a whim, and none of it was particularly good. The lack of a true identity in his music makes him a really hokey and disingenuous presence. While Kelly's musical randomness was disconcerting, the biggest issue with his set is the fact that he wasn't actually rapping 95% of the time. His lip-synching was blatant as he didn't even attempt to move his mouth to match the speed of the audio that was streaming over the PA. To his credit, his fans were too busy losing their minds to notice he wasn't actually performing his material, so he's clearing doing something right. I'll give him props for being wildly energetic and being an ace at working a crowd, I just can't get behind a disingenuous artist who doesn't have the talent to be able to perform their material live.
After a nearly 45-minute wait, the time had finally come for Limp Bizkit to perform. When this tour got announced I was definitely excited, but by the same token, I had no clue to what to expect. With their gleefully over-the-top sound and sporadic activity as a touring band for much of the past decade, it wouldn't have been entirely shocking if they ended up being a trainwreck live band in the present day. Any skepticism I had about Limp Bizkit's ability as a live band was shattered within the first minute they were on stage. You could tell right off the bat that they hadn't lost any of the edge that made one of the leading bands in the nu-metal movement. With their performance, they managed to bring the approximately 2,300 people in attendance back to the band's glory days the late 90's and early 2000's. Vocalist Fred Durst is the perfect frontman for this style of music. Say what you want about the man's image and personality, but he oozes charisma and energy. He is a master of crowd interaction that is able effortlessly rial up an entire crowd. Durst's amazing stage presence and spot-on vocal performance served as the catalyst for the quality of Limp Bizkit's performance. While there was a lot of surprises during their set, nothing surprised me more than intensity of the crowd. Based on the crowd reception, you would've thought they were still at their peak popularity. There was hardly any room to breathe on the floor as people were crowd surfing, moshing and moving around non-stop for the entirety of the 85 minutes they were on stage. Things got so nuts during hits like "Rollin'", "My Generation" and set closer "Break Stuff" that I honestly thought the rail in front of the stage was going to break. Out of the nearly 100 shows I've been to, this easily ranks in the top 10 in terms of crowd reception. You can tell the band was really appreciative at how insane the crowd was because they played a longer setlist than then they've played on most stops of the tour so far, and broke out songs like "Full Nelson" and "Boiler" for the first time on this tour. Plain and simple, Limp Bizkit is just fun as hell to watch live. Bouncing around and singing a long to these songs was a nostalgic and oddly beautiful experience. It's great to see a veteran band still perform with a lot of passion at a point in their career when they easily could be phoning it in. Limp Bizkit still bring it in 2014 and I'm beyond glad that I cashed in on the rare opportunity to see them live.
Scores:
Blvck Ceiling 5/10
Machine Gun Kelly 2.5/10
Limp Bizkit 8.5/10
Setlist:
Ready to Go
Rollin'
Hot Dog (w/Machine Gun Kelly)
Bring It Back
(DMX Party Up in Here interlude)
Nookie
Full Nelson
(Ludacris Move Bitch interlude)
My Generation
Livin' It Up
My Way
Re-Arranged
Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine cover)
Counterfeit/Pollution medley
Faith (George Michael cover)
Boiler
Take A Look Around
Break Stuff
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