Live Review: Limp Bizkit

Swarms of nostalgic nu-metal fans have to wait a little while longer to get their drop D fix with Franko Carino, aka DJ Skeletor – Limp Bizkit's touring beat man following DJ Lethal's drug indiscretions – filling the night with industrial-sized techno. Relishing his solo time in the spotlight, Franko creates a pulsing, unrelenting soundtrack that puts everyone on notice for what's to come.

Cigarette smoke hangs thick and stale in the air, there are cargo shorts aplenty, while believers readjust their red Yankees caps for the tenth time tonight. 2013 has become 1999 in an instant, and when Limp Bizkit walk out on stage the reaction from the crowd only solidifies that vibe further. The quintet get old school straight up, opening with Pollution, off their 1997 debut, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, before bleeding the song into Show Me What You Got. The now middle-aged men from Jacksonville, Florida still perform with the energy of their younger selves, and all the former stylistic oddities remain present, be it the lightsaber-esque bass of Sam Rivers or guitarist Wes Borland's all white Power Ranger-cum-I, Robot suit, which lights up like Daft Punk's outfits through hundreds of little programmed lights. Frontman Fred Durst is wearing the expected baggy red pants and white hoodie, although the Duck Commander hat is a new addition. The rock moves, however, are just as you remember them, complete with fist pumps and pelvic thrusts.

As the band work through a setlist pretty much pulled from their two biggest records – 1999's Significant Other and 2000's Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water – the mosh pit starts folding in on itself, shirtless men smashing into each other to the sounds of Hot Dog, Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle), My Generation and Livin' It Up. During all this Durst takes a moment to remember Jessica Michalik, urging people to look after each other, while elsewhere his banter veers to the random as he reps the hell out of the corn on the cob stand at the back of the hill. The riffs of old keep on coming, with My Way and Re-Arranged moving into a cover of Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name that the band knock out of the park, before Nookie sends the joint into fits, with a mini Fred lookalike plucked from the crowd to wax lyrically on the mic with Durst. By now, even the ladies of the night side of stage are losing it. An encore sees another cover aired as they tackle Jane's Addiction's I Would For You before running home with Take A Look Around and Break Stuff, which we do, and how.