I bet I was one of the few people at this show who felt genuinely let down. The prerequisites to feeling as though Jonathan Davis, Fieldy, Munky and Ray Luzier let you down are storied and kind of depressing. But why am I here in the first place?

Attendees at a Korn show (often stylized as KoRn when you can’t find a backwards R lying around) in 2012 are a balance of Korn-for-lifers and new recruits. It’s not quite like a New York Dolls/Poison show, full of that “Oh, honey, we should totally go– that will be so fun!” sentiment. Taking in large cross-sections of the crowd, the theater consisted of Korn absolutists and apologists, fan club members (Lil’ Kernals, as I imagine the collective to be named), Skrillex recruits whose favorite lyric of 2011 was easily, “Shut the fuck up, get up!”, nostalgia-divers still listening to nu-metal who all know a guy that does tattoos, and people who knew and genuinely enjoyed about three and a half songs by them.

I fell into the last group, and I wanted to hear “Got The Life”, “Blind”, “Get Up!”, and like half of “Freak On A Leash” and just roll with the thousands of people and ride those dark, hateful vibes. Mind, this is the Congress Theater, where fidelity is a distant second to getting blitzed with some bros and raging at a show. I’m there, I’m totally with you — I’m not here to overanalyze things. The only thing Korn had to do to make me leave happy was to just show up with some energy and not do or say anything offensive to make me change my mind about the three and half songs that I really liked.

Ugh. Korn!

The show was billed as Korn, Kill The Noise, and J-Devil. Korn I totally understood– they were the headliners! Kill The Noise, the wubstepper DJ who worked with Korn on their 2011 album Path of Totality totally made sense, but who was J-Devil? Some new band getting the sick cosign from Korn? J-Devil…J.D. Oh, no. Was this a Jonathon Davis DJ set? Alas, it was indeed Jonathon Davis playing “original” cuts on a laptop while hype-manning the crowd. It was exactly like this, only worse because it opened with this exact clip that, through some bunk-ass logic, attempts to explain how Barack Obama is Hebrew for Satan. Politics aside, really, J-Devil? You’re gonna kick off your dubstep inspired dark-house 130bpm #pressplay set with some pre-recorded political propaganda?

I moved past that but quick, because getting hung up on whatever the fuck Jonathan Davis’ politics are about will only work against my dream of enjoying three and a half Korn songs live. But the “alter-ego” DJ started this bad trend with J.D.: He acted like this was the first time he’s ever heard a dubstep beat. When that obligatory triplet happened, J.D. would start to play air-drums to it. This macho posturing and pantomime that was so ingratiating on the Kill The Noise set  transferred over to the Korn set during the “New Korn” segment that featured all that metal dubstep found on Path to Totality. Can you imagine James Hetfield of Metallica (who were the toast of the evening, memorialized by a little performance of “One” in Korn’s set and not one but two dubstep remixes during Kill The Noise’s set) miming Lars Ulrich’s drum fills all the time?

But Korn did have some things going for them. They sound great as a live band, due in no small part to the two additional touring band members backing the four-piece up. J.D.’s voice sounded great — his aggressive singing on songs like “Falling Away From Me” didn’t age a bit, and he’s still got that thrash-metal scream down pat. It turns out, however , that J.D.’s real singing voice — the one he presumably used at karaoke when he was younger — sounds nothing like the one he uses on “Freak on a Leash”, for example. This became clear when J.D. would amp up the crowd with ye olde epithets of crowd amping and he sounded like a normal dude instead of a Marilyn Manson copy. I’m not sure how I never put together that he was affecting his voice to sound mall-rock creepy and tortured, but the whole allure of Korn, which was dubious and precarious at the onset, was all but shattered right then and there.

And that kind of colored the rest of the show for me, as he continued to lead the party-hard crowd in getting hands up and two separate times tried to get everyone to sway their arms back and forth. One of these times was during a cover of all three parts of that Pink Floyd rarity “Another Brick In The Wall” plus “Goodbye Cruel World”. Korn doesn’t seem like a band anymore but rather a hose of primary-color emotions and music that a lot of people looked like they were absorbing for super powers.  Where J.D. was once a voice worth following, he’s now more of a pied piper, an image all to easy to drum up when he brought out bagpipes for the introduction to “Shoots and Ladders”.

I’m positive most of the crowd did not feel how I felt, however, and that was a really great thing about the show. When J.D. finally sang “Are you ready?!” in the encore, watching the entire floor of The Congress lose its business was great. Each half-full cup of beer flung into the air was a singular moment of further commitment to the concert from a fan. A real Korn flag flew in the audience, and eager fans waited longer that I’d wait for anything to get post-show autographs and setlists. They were the real die-hard fans, to whom Korn still means everything. It was kind of depressing to be officially outside of that group, unable to just “shut the fuck up, get up!’, but after this all-too-staged Korn retrospective of past and present material, they officially mean just about nothing to me now. Corn: as plain it comes.

Photography by Jeremy Larson.

Setlist:
Predictable
Lies
No Place to Hide
Helmet in the Bush
Narcissistic Cannibal
Chaos Lives in Everything
My Wall
Get Up!
Way Too Far
Here to Stay
Freak on a Leash
Falling Away From Me
Another Brick in the Wall Pts. 1, 2, 3 (Pink Floyd cover)
Goodbye Cruel World (Pink Floyd cover)
Encore:
Shoots and Ladders / One (Metallica cover)
Got the Life
Blind

After all, for Camp Bisco 9, the Biscuits have rounded together a lineup that is headed by LCD Soundsystem, Ween, and Thievery Corporation. (They already have like half of the U.S. festivals beat right there). Plus, acts like Girl Talk, Ghostland Observatory, Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, Major Lazer, Diplo, Aeroplane, Gui Boratto, Felix Cartel, Telepath, Future Rock, Kill the Noise, and Gift of Gab are also scheduled to perform. And of course, the Disco Biscuits will be holding down the fort with three sets during the weekend.

Camp Bisco 9 takes place from July 15-17 at the Indian Lookout Country Club in Mariaville, New York. In addition to the lineup, the band has also announced the inclusion of a second stage in the main field, a new dance tent location, and a local artists stage. Plus, sunrise silent disco!

Tickets, priced at $135 for all three days, are now available on campbisco.net.

Update: Camp Bisco has released an updated press release. Ghostland Observatory & Gui Buratto are no longer on lineup. However, Rusko, Spiritual Rez, C-mon & Kypski, and Woodhands now are. Click here for an updated lineup.

Mud, rain, flipped golf carts, pretty hippies, Tooly with his tow truck, and the Disco Biscuits. Those who attended pulled together through some of this season’s worst weather (Coventry, anyone?) and made the best out of the situation. The torrential pour on Friday night did not halt the revelers from watching the Disco Biscuits rock an illuminating set; lasers shot into trees, folks mired in mud –- some with umbrellas and others not –- but all exposed to the music of one of Camp Bisco’s best lineups in its eight year history. This year’s award for best performer goes to the attendees who smiled at some really shitty conditions.

Friday, July 17th

The Disco Biscuits:
Main Stage

Unfortunately, due to the worst rain in recent memory, traffic, and an endless search for a tow truck, only the last few songs of the Disco Biscuits can be reported but these last moments were thrilling. Watching a band play electric instruments through the sideways rain reminds people of rock and roll’s bravado. The crowd gathered tightly around each other during the set, arm and arm and mud and mud. It seemed as if the rain wasn’t a factor and it’s probably due to this year’s rain-laden festival circuit, it just became old news –- an annoyance to get over.

Saturday, July 18th

Telepath:
Main Stage

Telepath dug into its diverse palate of influences to give the audience a fusion fest of music to dance to. Being one of the earliest acts of the day, the band had the responsibility of working the crowd into a small frenzy. Groovy bass accompanied fusion jazz, licking trance-y shores lurched feet from the mud as people dug deeply into the reggae, dub world of Telepath while the band braved the heat in suit and tie.

Synewave:
Tent Stage

But on the other side of the field another band wasn’t so lucky with the crowd. Beneath the tent was a messy sludge that kept people on a narrow patch of plywood and gravel. Synewave played to an enthusiastic bevy of maybe 20 to 30 people but smiling faces they gave to these few. The airy intonations of their music crystallized an image of swimming in murky water while maintaining a fit of elegance on every note. The band was the first of the day to test out the limits of the tent and pulled together a tight set.

The Indobox:
Hill Stage

The Indobox performed blaringly well, etching one of the best performances of Saturday, blowing sonic waves of grain into everyone’s faces. This was Indobox’s third appearance at Camp Bisco (they performed at V and VI) and they played as if they wanted to gun for a fourth next year. It was early but they couldn’t wait for the sun to set to bestow to the crowd an amplified grin. The band surprisingly closed its set with a cover of Daft Punk’s “One More Time” while boxes with a pair of faces were thrust into the sky by surrounding fans.

STS9:
Main Stage

The five-some that is STS9 continued where Break Science left off, pulling a vibrant set. By this time, everyone was tearing apart the mud, flinging it onto themselves while feet picked up in the air from the raucous dance performed by the horde of fans that clamored together in front of the stage. People drifted from the side streets onto the field and cheered on the band through its well executed performance.

Kill The Noise:
Tent Stage

It’s understood that artists are assigned slots based on draw and popularity, however if one were to appropriate sets based on energy then this guy should have been given a better time. After AC Slater’s set, the crowd began to disperse but Kill The Noise’s tech-y, electro-house sound seemed to thrive on adversity. This tent went from having a barely generous gathering of people to filling out the front of the stage and outer rim of the tent -– a difficult feat considering that the mud was at least ankle deep.

Holy Ghost:
Tent Stage

Holy Ghost‘s performance good but not great. It was almost as if the Brooklyn outfit was dishing out a warm up set for someone else… just with a bit more energy. Although, the music was fine — at best — it was a let down for the Disco Biscuits’ closing performance at the main stage. This was a situation that was best suited for someone else (ahem, Kill the Noise).