Live Review

Korn at The O2: The deeper cuts make their mark

Words by The Pit Standard · Photography by Marianne Brits

Korn at The O2 Arena, London — 2026-11-04

Korn have a catalogue that reaches well beyond the songs most closely associated with their name. At The O2, the balance between those familiar singles and some less frequently played material made for an interesting set, although it was the older, less predictable choices that gave the evening much of its character.

The European arena run brought Korn together with Architects and Youth Code, three bands approaching heavy music from very different directions. For Korn, the London date also marked a return to British arenas following their appearances at Gunnersbury Park and Download.

Youth Code opened the evening with a sound rooted in industrial and electronic music. The Los Angeles duo, Sara Taylor and Ryan George, combine abrasive synthesiser work, programmed rhythms and Taylor’s aggressive vocal delivery. Their set sat outside the more conventional metal sound of the bands that followed, offering a distinctly different opening to the night.

Architects took the stage next, with frontman Sam Carter leading the band into ‘Whiplash’ before moving through material from The Sky, The Earth & All Between and earlier releases. ‘when we were young’, ‘Curse’ and ‘Doomsday’ featured alongside ‘Animals’, ‘deep fake’, ‘Everything Ends’, ‘Seeing Red’ and ‘Machine’.

Before ‘Broken Mirror’, Sam Carter took a moment to address the audience about mental health. He spoke about the importance of being able to talk openly about mental health, encouraging people to reach out to friends or someone they trust rather than dealing with their struggles alone. It was a subject that took the performance beyond the music, with Carter using his time on stage to reinforce the importance of looking out for one another.

Korn opened with ‘It’s On!’ and ‘Here to Stay’, immediately drawing from two different points in their catalogue. ‘Reward the Scars’, released in connection with the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred expansion, brought a more recent track into the early part of the set before ‘Got the Life’ and ‘Rotting in Vain’.

Davis’s voice is one of the defining features of Korn, but hearing it live brings the full range of his delivery into sharper focus. He moves from a low, almost conversational register into sudden bursts of aggression, strained cries and the rhythmic vocal patterns that have become so closely associated with the band. Head and Munky’s guitars build around those shifts, moving between tightly locked riffs, dissonant textures and the heavy, groove-driven passages that give Korn their sound. Behind them, Ray Luzier and Ra Díaz form a particularly strong rhythm section. Díaz, who joined the touring lineup in 2021 after playing with Suicidal Tendencies, has made the bass role his own, locking in with Luzier while bringing his own playing style to material originally recorded with Fieldy. He is no longer a new addition to the lineup, but his place in the band’s live sound is worth recognising.

The stage production was built around a suspended structure of illuminated blocks above the band. Its movement, combined with the changing imagery across the LED panels, altered the visual arrangement of the stage throughout the set. It was a substantial part of the production, although the focus remained on the musicians below it.

The Life Is Peachy selections were among the most interesting choices of the night. ‘Twist’, ‘Chi’, ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ and ‘Kill You’ brought four very different moments from the 1996 album into the set. ‘Twist’ remains an unusual piece of vocal experimentation, built around Davis’s rapid shifts in pitch and delivery. ‘Chi’ has a rawness that sits comfortably alongside the album’s heavier material, while ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ and ‘Kill You’ reveal contrasting sides of Korn’s songwriting. With the album reaching its thirtieth anniversary this year, hearing four tracks from it in one set was a welcome decision.

A recorded section of ‘Am I Going Crazy’ led into ‘Shoots and Ladders’. Davis’s bagpipes introduced one of the band’s most recognisable songs, which takes familiar nursery rhymes and places them within a much darker musical setting. It remains an unusual idea, and one that has retained its place in the live set. ‘Coming Undone’, with its incorporation of Sly Fox’s ‘Let’s Go All the Way’, shifted the mood again.

‘Did My Time’ and ‘Make Me Bad’ brought the set back to material from the band’s early 2000s releases, before ‘Y’All Want a Single’ delivered its deliberately blunt refrain. The song leaves little room for subtlety, but its directness is part of its appeal. Aggression, dark humour and confrontational subject matter have always been part of Korn’s writing, and this track brings those elements together without much concern for restraint.

The audience reflected the different generations that Korn now reach. Long-time fans stood alongside younger listeners, with both groups singing, dancing and moshing throughout the performance. The response to the older material was particularly noticeable. These songs clearly haven’t become a museum piece for the people who first heard them in the nineties; they still have an audience ready to engage with them in a live setting.

The encore moved through ‘Falling Away from Me’, ‘Blind’ and ‘Twisted Transistor’ before ‘Freak on a Leash’. These are among the songs most closely associated with Korn’s wider success, and their place at the end of the set was hardly unexpected. The response made clear why they remain there, but the closing stretch was also where the set became most predictable.

That contrast is worth considering. The four Life Is Peachy tracks offered some of the night’s most interesting moments, while the final run returned to the songs an arena audience would almost certainly expect. There is nothing wrong with giving people the tracks they came to hear, particularly when the response is this enthusiastic. But Korn have a catalogue deep enough to make a case for taking more risks with the setlist.

At The O2, the strongest moments came when they did just that.

Setlist

‘It’s On!’ / ‘Here to Stay’ / ‘Reward the Scars’ / ‘Got the Life’ / ‘Rotting in Vain’ / ‘Twist’ / ‘Chi’ / ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ / ‘Kill You’ / ‘Am I Going Crazy’ (recorded) / ‘Shoots and Ladders’ / ‘Coming Undone’ / ‘Did My Time’ / ‘Make Me Bad’ / ‘Y’All Want a Single’