In 1999, Korn were on top of the world. Still riding high on the smash success of Follow the Leader, released the year before, the nu-metal godfathers were now TRL regulars who had spearheaded a whole new style of heavy music and captivated a generation in the process. While it's overshadowed by the catastrophic end that Woodstock '99 came to, Korn's ferocious set at the doomed festival was a crowning moment, and one of their straight-up greatest performances ever.
As all the talking heads in Netflix's new docuseries Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 agree, Korn was the band that the majority of the 250,000-plus festivalgoers were most stoked to see on day one. Jonathan Davis, who's interviewed, remembers being nervous and excited beforehand, feeling like, "This was massive." Then when he came out onstage, he was blown away by the size of the crowd. "When you see it with your own eyes, it's just 10 times more shocking," Davis recalls. "I look over and just see waves [ripple through the crowd] as the sound traveled all the way to the back."
Korn's stunning 13-song set culminated in a no-hold-barred performance of "My Gift to You," which they opened with the intro to Slayer's "Seasons in the Abyss" and ended with Davis collapsed on the stage, having given his all but still roaring. "I felt like I did something really incredible," he says in Trainwreck: Woodstock '99. "We kicked that ass." Indeed.
