Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Fans flock to free Limp Bizkit show in Las Vegas

Hundreds watch band’s long-awaited American reunion show

Limp Bizkit at the Pearl

Courtesy Fred Durst via Twitter and Yfrog

Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit performs at the Pearl on July 19.

Set List

  • (Space Odyssey intro)
  • My Generation
  • Livin' it Up
  • Show me What You Got
  • Eat You Alive
  • Almost Over
  • Rearranged
  • Break Stuff
  • Boiler
  • Full Nelson
  • My Way
  • Nookie
  • Pollution
  • Faith
  • (Thriller laugh)
  • Behind Blue Eyes
  • Rollin'
  • Take a Look Around

Free is a popular “f” word and Limp Bizkit is a popular band.

Put the two together and you have a rock show that sells out – or, rather, is “handed out,” since all 2,500 seats were given away – in just over half an hour.

Though the band has been out of the spotlight for several years, Limp Bizkit proved yesterday it can still draw a crowd.

Hundreds of fans flocked to the Palms yesterday morning and stood in line hoping for tickets for the founding bandmembers’ first U.S. concert in more than eight years.

Joe Gombos was one of those fans. He arrived three hours before the giveaway began, at just after 9 a.m., but as he approached the box office, he discovered nearly 200 people were already in front of him.

The Green Valley resident filed into the 197th spot in line and waited patiently for the box office to open.

Meanwhile, the spot at the front of the line belonged to a man from Connecticut who flew in for the show.

Three hours later, both of them had tickets to see Limp Bizkit live.

“I’ve been wanting to see them live forever but then they stopped performing,” Gombos, 38, lamented.

Not long after all the tickets were handed out, scalpers were re-selling them both discreetly on site at the Palms and online.

Additional tickets were released to the public later that afternoon, however, which allowed dozens of latecomers to avoid the inflated pries and gain access to the show for free.

Passes were given out on the day of the show, and limited to two per person, in effort to deter scalping.

Yet despite the preventative measures, hawkers were still trying to sell tickets for up to $75 apiece on the popular free classified Web site Craigslist.org even after the show was over.

While diehard fans flew in and stood in line for hours to ensure they got in to see the show, and others paid a premium to purchase tickets second-hand, some of the assumed fans in the stands last night weren’t really fans at all.

Laine Smith and five of her cocktail dress-clad girlfriends were some of those people.

“We're not the biggest fans,” the 21-year-old Central Coast, Calif-resident admitted before the show as she perfected her hair and make-up in the washroom.

Still, she and her girlfriends figured the concert would be a good appetizer for their night’s main course of large-scale, Vegas-style clubbing.

“We're going out after the show, to (the Bank nightclub at) the Bellagio,” she said.

Smith said she and the others only went to the show because a Palms Place concierge gave them tickets. (They weren’t aware that all passes for the show were free but, for what it’s worth, the host did give them prime seating in a private box.)

Yet the brunette said she remembered Limp Bizkit from “way back when,” for their hit single, “Nookie,” “And that one about breaking stuff,” in particular.

Gombos, meanwhile, said he had been a fan of the band, “for as long as I can remember.”

After seeing his longtime idols perform, the audio-video specialist said his appreciation for the band was at an all time high.

“I wanted to see them forever and to be able to see them for free, it was unbelievable,” he said.

“They sound just as good now as they did eight years ago,” he said. “I don’t know what the hiatus did, but they sound great. … They have energy, they know how to get the crowd going, and their music is awesome.”

His friend, Mike Buck, agreed.

“This is the best concert I’ve ever been to in my life,” he said, shaking his head in post-show disbelief “I swear to God, I’ve never been to a concert like this before in my life.”

Before last night, he said a Kid Rock show that he saw a few years ago was his favorite of the 30 or so concerts he’s gone to over the years.

Though the band performed for more than 90 minutes and gave a short encore, Gombos said the performance left him wanting more.

“I’m going to L.A. if they play in L.A.,” he said.

While Gombos hopes to head west to catch the band when it hits the road with a U.S. tour later this year or in early 2010, many of the band’s fans made special trips to Las Vegas in order to see last night’s show.

Alex Dawson, 15, and his brother, Ed Dawson, 18, were two of many who flew in for the show.

“I wasn’t sure if they were going to tour the whole U.S., so I really wanted to come to this,” Alex said. “I had to see Limp Bizkit.”

Today is the New Jersey resident’s 16th birthday and the musically-motivated trip was a birthday present.

While the brothers’ mother came along to chaperone, she let her sons go to the show without her.

It was their first time in Vegas.

“I can’t wait to come back when I’m 21,” the seniormost sibling said as he took in the scene in front of the Pearl before the show.

Though both considered themselves to be longtime Limp Bizkit fans, last night was the first time either of them had seen the band live.

Alex took things to the extreme as he prepared for the performance: He covered himself in body paint -- his torso in red and his face and hair in white – and did his best to recreate guitarist Wes Borland’s look from the band’s “My Generation” music video.

Though he doesn’t make a habit out of it, the young metal fan said he breaks out the body paint for special shows such as the one that took place at the Pearl last night.

He said he had done it once before, for an Insane Clown Posse concert.

Costume-loving Borland also broke out the body paint last night and appeared onstage in a blur of mostly red paint, clothing and an elaborate headdress. The colorful guitarist also wore two different masks during the performance.

“How (expletive) crazy does Wes look right now?” the band’s f-bomb-loving frontman asked.

He and rest of the band stuck to a rather basic, all-black wardrobe, with a few exceptions, such as his signature, backward red baseball cap.

The band was more than half an hour late taking the stage but no one in the audience seemed to mind.

After all, the show almost did not happen at all: It was originally scheduled to take place last Friday, July 10, as part of the kick-off festivities for UFC 100, but was canceled two weeks before it was to take place.

When the UFC axed the show, the band was left to either reschedule the performance on their own or hold their long-awaited American reunion show elsewhere.

There was no debating what the band wanted to do; It instantly set about rebooking the performance.

However, Limp Bizkit soon decided that not only would the show go on, but it would go on for free.

“We felt that was he right thing to do, just with all the miscommunication,” Durst told the Sun during a phone interview last week.

The frontman seemed both humble and thankful as he addressed the crowed between the band’s still-very-angst-filled songs.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for you guys,” he said. “You definitely did not come here to see us, we came here to see you guys tonight, and don’t you forget it.”

He and his bandmates worked through over a dozen songs, including “Rearranged,” “Break Stuff,” “Nookie,” and the George Michael cover that started it all, “Faith.”

Though the band plans to record a new record next month, it did not share any new material with the crowd last night.

Instead, fans were asked to review the Limp Bizkit retrospective and help them determine the set list online, through the Web site pickRset.com.

Meanwhile, camera crews documented the performance and the edited footage will soon be made available for download on iTunes.

After spending the last few months overseas touring Europe, the band seemed happy to be back in the U.S.

“This place is off the hook tonight,” Durst remarked midway through the performance.

After a lengthy hiatus and previous unsuccessful attempts to reunite, it seems the members of Limp Bizkit have made their peace.

(And by peace, we mean happy place, where they can rockout alongside one another, not get mad at each other, and sound good at the same time.)

“We really needed the hiatus … The songs mean more, on stage together, our interaction with the crowd, everything is just heightened,” Durst said last week.

While his recently reunited band was well-received in Europe, Durst was taken aback by the crowd’s reaction as Limp Bizkit was reborn on American soil.

In a rare solumn moment, the older and wiser, yet still sufficiently hardcore nu-metal rapper professed, “From the floor until the ceiling, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”

Melissa Arseniuk writes about Las Vegas entertainment and celebrity events. She can be reached at 702-948-7823 or by e-mail at [email protected].

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