At first, I thought about which circa-Y2K alternative rock artists would be the last ones I’d want to see in an intimate acoustic environment. But as the candidates started to emerge—nu-metal doofs, aggro white rappers, what’s his face from The Bloodhound Gang—it became apparent that these are the folks I’d most hope to see.
If you wanted to hear an acoustic version of 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite,” you could go to most any college dorm on most any nearby campus. But the mind boggles at the opportunity to discover whether “Break Stuff” can become a poignant dirge or whether all of this music just sounds like that one Staind song. If only for the sake of schadenfreude, these are our six most highly anticipated solo tours.
WES SCANTLIN (PUDDLE OF MUDD): If Scantlin even makes it to the venue, that’s a victory—or perhaps it’s where the night goes irreparably downhill. The guy’s already been arrested in an airport twice in 2015, and just last weekend, Puddle of Mudd got booed off the stage in Ohio and subsequently deleted their Facebook page. Combined with the fact that their most famous song features the line “I like the way you slap my ass,” he’s the closest thing his chosen form has to latter-day Sly Stone.
COREY TAYLOR (SLIPKNOT): For a solid decade, I’ve been trying to convince indie bands that the melody of “Wait and Bleed” can hold up as a folk song. (In the process, I may have predicted the existence of Stone Sour?) At the end of the day, “People=Shit” deserves stripped-down, gut-punch clarity.
JONATHAN DAVIS (KORN): Odds are, having to enunciate rather than scream his most painful memories will result in Davis sobbing for 10 minutes. But he might be in a more jovial mood and do an a cappella version of “Twist.”
BRANDON BOYD (INCUBUS): Check the set mostly to see whether or not he’s acquired a shirt that actually buttons.
JAY GORDON (ORGY): On the contingency that he reaches out to Frente! and does a co-headlining tour to celebrate using New Order songs after 1994 to get more famous than New Order.
SEN DOG (CYPRESS HILL): It’s easy to forget how naturally Cypress Hill rode the nu-metal wave with Skull & Bones, a double CD split into “rock” and “rap.” Who wouldn’t want to watch Sen Dog perform just his parts of Cypress Hill classics, though, including the ad-libs and the verses you typically skip. It’s the sonic equivalent of “Garfield Without Garfield.”
