Just sat through one full listen of what is possibly the worst Unplugged album ever recorded (which coincidentally sports one of the worst Unplugged album covers ever as well). If you listen to local radio, you’ll undoubtedly have heard the “Freak on a Leash” single already, and sadly, the entire session was that bad, or worse. Evanescence’s Amy Lee sits in on this song, serving only to highlight the fact that Jonathan Davis is incapable of harmonizing with anyone. Check out the video here.
Other lowlights include a really awkward cover of Radiohead’s Creep — from the sound of it, this may be the first (and undoubtedly last) time in his career that Davis has ever attempted to sing in falsetto in front of a live audience — and an unholy mashup of “Make Me Bad” with The Cure’s “In Between Days.” (Nope, he can’t harmonize with Robert Smith either.)
I think my main issue with this recording was how tremendously overwrought it was. According to the Wikipedia entry, there were no less than “four celli, two basses, two cimbassos, two bass/contrabass trombonists, a saw player, a glass harmonica player, choir bells, and a six person taiko ensemble” in addition to Korn themselves. I mean, c’mon, when Nirvana did this 14 years ago, there were exactly 4 guys on stage, and they still managed to rock harder than these jokers. When Alice in Chains performed in 1996, Layne Stayley looked like he wasn’t even completely there, and their performance was one of the most memorable Unpluggeds ever. And Pearl Jam had more power in one friggin’ song than Korn can manage throughout this entire concert.
(Watch the full-length Alice in Chains Unplugged performance right here.)