Let There Be Rock's Live Act of 2023
- Let There Be Rock
- Jan 20, 2024
- 3 min read
🏆 Live Act of 2023:
@ Halifax Piece Hall, 12th August.
This years selection for the best live act has been head and shoulders above the others I've seen since the 12th August. For a month or so I thought I had found my clear winner for this category when Sheffield’s finest, Def Leppard, graced the stage on Glasgow Green in the pouring rain for the long awaited World Tour gig with Mötley Crüe. They were exceptional, ultimate professionals and true showmen, proudly flying the flag for British classic rock. Surely nothing could top that?… Or so I thought!
On the 12th August, after a month of non-stop rain, it was finally time to head to The Piece Hall, in Halifax, my home town, for my first experience of what has be labelled as Yorkshire’s ‘hottest’ new music venue. The location, an historic grade I listed former Georgian cloth hall, dating back to 1779, the oldest of its kind in the world. In recent years the huge open-air courtyard had been rescued from a state of decline with a multi-million pound make-over, now boasting a wealth of unique and boutique independent shops, bars, cafes and a restaurant. Post covid, the plans were in place to use the square courtyard as a music venue, installing a massive temporary stage for over the summer months where acts from a wide variety of musical genres could perform in the open-air to a few thousand people. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined that one of those acts performing there would be nu-metal legends Limp Bizkit!
My inner teenager was overly excited at the announcement of this gig, having to pinch myself that Limp Bizkit were actually coming to play the small northern town where I grew up. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one, friends I went to school and university with, family members, and their friends of friends of friends, who were all millennials in their teens when Fred Durst and co where at the height of popularity during the late 90s, early 2000s, were all scrambling for tickets to a concert nobody could ever have predicted taking place at The Piece Hall in Halifax.
Like a sea of old school moshers heading on mass into the courtyard, which was dotted with the occasional fan wearing the iconic red New York Yankees hat, the vibe felt electric, it was like a mass high school reunion, the crowd were here for the nostalgia and to have a damn good time.
As Fred Durst and co took to the stage, and kicked off with ‘Show Me What You Got’ the whole place erupted, like an explosion of pure pandemonium, a mass movement of bodies, front to back, like one mega mosh pit. It may have been some 20 years later but the crowd of predominantly 30/40 year olds created an atmosphere that even Fred Durst was taken back by, the whole place bouncing as Fred declared part way through the set, “This might just be my new favourite spot”!
Sporting his now older gentlemen beard, Durst delivered the rap metal vocals and swaggered around the stage like it was still 1999, churning out hit after hit! ‘My Generation’, ‘Nookie’, ‘Hot Dog’, ‘Break Stuff’, ‘My Way’, ‘Rollin’’, “Take A Look Around’, and more! No let up in the energy from the crowd, not even when they slowed it down a tad, with their cover of The Who’s classic, ‘Behind Blue Eyes’. With Wes Borland’s guitar licks and DJ Lethal on the turntables, the band turned back the years and delivered more than an overly excited Yorkshire crowd could have ever imagined. The response was a rousing chorus of “Yorkshire” chants, in which a confused Fred Durst even joined in with, after several attempts to understand what was being said. “You’re Shit?”, he asked confused before being corrected, and promptly then lead the chant.
On an evening where the crowd had been so feral, if it was even possible for them to lose their shit anymore than they already had done, it was during the sets closing track and Limp Bizkit staple, ‘Break Stuff’. What was once channelled as teenage angst, was now an anthem for a generation, my generation. A song quite simply about wanting to punch someone in the face, we’ve all experienced those moments in life, and right there through the power of music thousands of people in unison screaming the songs crescendo “If my day keeps going this way, I just might break your fuckin’ face tonight”. Cue utter bedlam in the crowd.
It sounds like utter chaos, but it was a prime and very rare example of how music should still be enjoyed. Limp Bizkit brought a perfect storm, and what a night it was, it’s safe to say it will live long in the memories of all who attended, and will go down as legend. The day Limp Bizkit came to little ole Halifax!
Website: https://limpbizkit.com
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