2012-04-06   

We are drumming out from our foothill camp: KORN, the heaviest band in the festival´s history, is coming. They are going to please our romantic hearts with their heavy and innovative rhythms. The 25th year of our cult meeting starts with the cash-on-deliv

On the Good Friday, it the time of the happy news about Christ´s resurrection, we are drumming out that our foothill camp will be visited by an American band Korn. We believe that they will uplift and revive our souls and that their heavy and innovative rhythms will please many a heart! This year’s meeting will take place on the traditional spot “the Battlefield” in the period of 16/8 – 19/8. Experienced visitors know that our Chief Václav Havel and the Underground Guru Ivan Martin “Magor” Jirous often used to visit this festival that was built on the underground foundations. Since they both departed last year, this year´s festival will be dedicated to them In Memoriam.

Diversity and this year´s dedication

With the upcoming spring and in the time of the good news, we are sending the smoke signals from our foothill camp to announce that this year’s intersection of musical styles will be represented by an American band Korn, which will ensure even more extreme diversity of styles than we have been used to.

However you might feel that this year´s dedication has nothing to do with a metal band Korn, this might be misleading. It is diversity and variety that attracts our tribe like a moth to a burning candle in our Wigwams. Artists representing various styles will share the stage; underground, classical music, jazz, world music, pop, metal etc., exactly as our Chief Václav liked it. Korn will be the icing on the cake of this four-day meeting. The underground tent will not only host lectures, moving pictures and discussions, but there will be music until the late hours, exactly how Magor fancied it.

We believe that it will please their souls…

Korn – the heaviest band in the 25 years of the festival history.
The lids on the pots will be jumping up.

As the experienced ones know and share with the younger inexperienced ones while sitting round the camp fires, it is typical for Trutnov that along the folk songwriters, underground, jazz, pop and world music bands our audience is used to welcome world known representatives of hard and metal music. This coincidental tradition was started in 1997 by Faith No More. The music journalist Petr Korál confirms this: “I take the concert of Korn at this year’s Trutnov festival as another confirmation of an unwritten tradition when an event that is damn far from a heavy metal festival hosts a refreshing gig of a really heavy group, which is cheered by the tolerant Trutnov audience. Korn will therefore join Faith No More, Sepultura, Soulfly, Mötorhead, Arch Enemy, Suicidal Tendencies, Fear Factory, Cavalera Conspiracy, Moonspell and others that have already experienced and enjoyed the specific atmosphere of our foothill camp.“

It is great that the band and their manager have found us and expressed a wish to play in our camp. We bet that lids Krakonoš´s pots will be really jumping up this year because we are going to host one of the heaviest bands. It fascinates us with their innovative methods, enriching the heavy and metal music and moving it further. Korn are always a step ahead.

Who are Korn?

In the United States Korn have sold almost 17 million records and they have received six Grammy nominations, two of which have been turned into awards – for the songs “Freak on a Leash“ and “Here to Stay. As the journalist Jaroslav Špulák says about this year’s shamans:   “They are considered to be the creators of so called nu-metal. The first Korn album was called after the band and as soon as it was released it was obvious that the world music scene would be quickly changing. Korn took the best of metal and surrounded it with a modern approach. Moreover, their fans over the ocean understood it and the album became platinum twice. The Europeans loved it, too. Music journalists started to write about nu-metal. “

Korn became an example for a number of other bands, such as Linkin Park, Slipknot, Papa Roach or Limp Bizkit. In their beginnings they were a support band of Metallica and they are a favourite band of divine Ozzy Osbourn, who used to take them on his tours. Later Korn used to overshadow Ozzy and their concerts were gaining more power. As the journalist Petr Korál adds: “Korn became one of the most popular bands of the modern rock metal generation and they were also very well received by the critics. This generation only little associated with the creative methods and various clichés so typical for all those hard & heavy icons of the previous two decades. It was Korn who upgraded the under-tuned sound of the seven-string guitars to the imaginary New Testament. “

Will Korn move the foundations of “the Battlefield” or the minds …?

The advance guard of the legendary Korn was the last years year’s performance of their ex-guitar player Brian “Head“ Welch, who co-founded the band in 1993. The rhythms of Brian’s band shook the foundations of “the Battlefield” and evoked the sound of the home Korn, who should crown the message this year. The music of Korn might vibrate the area enough to move the foundations of the planned development or the waste pipes that have already been laid on this holy ground and that are threatening the festival existence. However, a better solution would be if they could move the minds of our modern masters who want to build up “the Battlefield” and if they could change their mind regarding building on a green field. This might be only naive wishful thinking though…

Korn´s last record with electronic features not only enriched and hardened their music, but it also moved metal a step further. The sound on their last album is very raw. Does it also remind you for example of the Nine Inch Nails sound but with a larger dose of metal? This will enter our romantic hearts and we can’t wait! It is interesting that this music often appeals to young and fragile girls. We can also imagine how many of their orthodox metal fans have been infuriated by Korn´s innovative approach. Korn can not be put into a certain category and that is exactly the right for our festival camp.

“I am absolutely excited about the new record. I am even more excited by the fact that it will make our fans furious. I absolutely don’t care what they will think. We can never win it with our old fans. Some of them got stuck in 1994 when we started,,“ are the words of the lead singer Jonathan Davis after the release. „I am sick of the fact that everybody marks Korn as a great-father of nu-metal. It pisses me off. We do not want to fall into nostalgia. I would say that we created a new musical style while recording our last album. We call it future metal. “ Yes. Thanks, Jonathan!

Jaroslav Špulák comments: “Korn have released many albums; some were excellent, others a bit worse, but they are always looking for new ways. They found it on the last one called The Path of Totality, where they joined nu-metal with dub-step. And they did such a great job that in the end they approached followers of both styles which had very little in common until then... Korn are going to arrive in Trutnov in this condition then and it is going to be an exceptionally aggressive rock ride as well as a meeting with people who have never got stuck in one style of music.“