You would be correct in thinking that Grade I-listed Georgian halls and brazen US rap-metal might make unorthodox bedfellows. Even Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst had his doubts about tonight’s setting. “Halifax, motherfucker!” he shouts. “I had no idea that the energy was gonna be this fucking dope”. Yet the nu-metal elders transform this elegant Calder Valley market hall into a cauldron of irresistible new-millennium noise.
Back in 2000, the Jacksonville quintet’s third album, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, made them one of the biggest bands on the planet, and Fred Durst one of the most contentious characters in music. The band caught some retrospective flak again last year after the release of Netflix’s Trainwreck: Woodstock 99 – a docuseries capturing the carnage of that doomed festival. They were accused of inciting riots during their performance, though Durst has maintained his band’s innocence, saying the organisers were looking for a scapegoat. “All drinks are free for the next 45 seconds but water’s $10,” he quips tonight, in an apparent reference to the festival’s infamously inflated prices.
