Nearing the end of the fourth installment (and first since 2001), the Family Values Tour rolled through Buckeye territory in a day of somewhat satisfying, radio friendly hard rock that pleased the 12,000 or so in attendance at the Columbus venue. While Korn headlined the 9 hour show, the bands ranged from metalcore (Bury Your Dead), to avant garde Japanese hard rock (Dir En Grey) to meat and potatoes hard rock (Stone Sour) that gave the festival a second life.

As the lukewarm September sun finally came out, the mosh pit fanatics first ignited to the Boston band Bury Your Dead. The band is typical metalcore, with lots of guttural vocals and slashing riffs, but lead singer Mat Busco ran off stage, all the way to the lawn mosh pit during the band’s last song “The Color Of Money”. It’s a good touch when bands know how to connect with their audience, even if it means putting yourself in harm’s way.

Knoxville’s 10 Years was next, and lead singer Jesse Hasek came out attired like he was ready for an Arctic expedition, with large yellow snow boots, and a winter jacket made for sub-zero temperatures. The music and the crowd response to the bland group never made it out of the frigid range either.

Playing in front of a backdrop of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, Japan’s Dir En Grey was next. They woke the crowd up slightly, but didn’t really seem to have that much effect on the Columbus faithful. The band’s lack of knowledge of the English language hurt the band as they just decided to forgo crowd interaction for all 30 minutes of their set. The band’s industrial sounding riffs were well done, but not understanding the lead singer’s vocals hurt them.

Texas’ Flyleaf hit the stage next as they shot the crowd with another dose of uninspired rock radio drivel. Even though cute lead singer Lacey Mosley jumped and bounced around on stage , songs like “Fully Alive” and “I’m So Sick” did nothing to distinguish themselves from bands like Evanescence.

Even though this reviewer was cringing at the thought of seeing Slipknot’s Corey Taylor’s side project, Stone Sour, the band put on a surprisingly strong 50 minute set. Starting with the fist pumpers “30/30-150” and “Reborn”, Taylor (sans Slipknot mask) attacked the government on “Come Whatever May” and even got the usual Ohio Republican base cheering for him. The 1-2 punch of the power ballads “Bother” and “Through Glass” could have been avoided, but the rest of the stage proved to quite a pleasant development.

Sacramento based Deftones worked hard during their 50 minute set; making sure it was way more intense than the lackluster performance they gave during the Taste of Chaos show earlier this year. The band was heavy on the far superior older material, such as “My Own Summer” and “Passenger”. The newer material seems much more tame and songs like “Hole In the Earth” lack the passion and fire of previous work. Lead singer Chino Moreno did end the set with the debut single from the bands “7 Words”, which would left the fans moshing as the sun began to fade into night.

Headliners Korn demonstrated to the rest of the bands just who was running the show, with a hits filled, 80 minute set, which was more bizarre than past sets from the band. The band got the crowd moving early with heavier material, such as “Right Now”, “Falling Away From Me”, and “Twist”. The main core of the band looked very tight and not missing a beat throughout most of the material. Ever since the departure of founding guitarist Brian “Head” Welch, the band has tinkered with a full on backing band behind them, complete with additional percussion and guitars. All of the members of the backing band were wearing very unusual looking animal masks and almost took the between song theatrics to something out of place for a Korn show.

Probably the best twist to the evening was the Deftones’ Chino Moreno coming out to sing the cover of the hardcore rap classic by Ice Cube, “Wicked”. Most of the younger crowd didn’t realize what the song was, but the old Korn fans rapped along to every verse.

Korn ripped through the encore, with a triple threat of bouncy new track “Twisted Transistor”, angry anti-record label ode “Y’all Want a Single”, and the song that started it all for Korn, “Blind”. Even with the unusual theatrics going on stage, Korn proved that without one of their founding members that they could still demolish a crowd in their live show.

As a whole, it was a successful return for the Family Values Tour, but with all of the carnival acts and side show things going on, it reminded me of that other large hard rock touring extravaganza: OzzFest.