Bluesfest Day 2 review: Limp Bizkit brings the house down with metal nostalgia and a hometown surprise

It was just one of those days.

Merch tables lined the path into Bluesfest on the second day of the festival, shirt after shirt with the Cypress Hill leaf logo and Limp Bizkit’s skull. Hours before either band touched the main stage, the crowd was already dressed for them, including a noticeable amount of red baseball hats and white tees for Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.

That anticipation carried straight into F!TH’s set over at the RBC Stage. With the heat peaking at about 27 C – a welcome change from the previous day’s rain –, the band ran across the stage between verses, pulling out the day’s first real burst of energy from the crowd. They tore through the Sum 41-inspired “A Rock and a Hard Place,” followed by “Tough Shit.”

DJ Mace once again dominated the Spin Stage, gathering a large crowd of dancers while the sun slowly began to set.

Cutting across the grounds and into the Canadian War Museum’s Barney Danson Theatre felt like walking into a different festival entirely. The room was set up like a jazz bar, almost as if it were staging a quiet, somber performance. Nicknamed by many the “Indigenous Adele,” local musician and Carleton University alumna Alicia Kayley and her band gave the crowd anything but that. Kayley’s powerhouse voice hit the walls hard enough to shift the shape of the room as lead guitarist Ben Griggs tore into unexpected and roaring guitar solos.

Back outside, the LeBreton Stage hosted Americana singer Miko Marks. Marks’s powerful voice gave her country style a rare kind of grit, and she was the only act of the day who was due to play two separate stages. 

Nashville’s legendary “The Galway Girl” singer Steve Earle followed, bringing a newfound maturity and clarity to his classics, a quieter energy that hit the crowd right in the soul, as they sat in the stands entranced.

Doubling back to the RBC Stage, Cypress Hill’s skull logo was planted on the stage, and it was only a matter of time before the band’s B-Real and Sen Dog tore into “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” backed by Eric Bobo and DJ Lord. “When I say Cypress, you say Hill,” yelled Sen Dog, and the response from the crowd was loud enough to shake the ground.

Back at the Danson Theatre, Welsh folk guitarist Gwenifer Raymond delivered a hypnotic performance, possessing a command over the acoustic guitar that made you wonder how it didn’t catch fire. During one of the rare breaks between her majestic acoustic wanderings, she joked about bringing out Fred Durst, further proving that everyone at the festival only had one thing on their mind.

Limp Bizkit began their show on the RBC Stage with a countdown; when it hit zero, a boombox with their iconic logo shook the screens.

Fred Durst and the rest of the band took the stage, including Wes Borland, covered in his signature KISS-inspired make-up which pays homage to Mexican Day of the Dead traditions in its colour and style. They kicked the show off immediately with “Hot Dog,” off their 2000 album Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. 

Right after the electric opener, Durst called out the crowd, saying “You know what you’re here for,” before tearing into the band’s number one hit, “Break Stuff.” 

Water cannons sprayed over the audience as fans screamed every word from each corner of LeBreton Flats’ sprawling field. Wes Borland’s unconventional but exciting guitar playing, joined by John Otto’s steady tempo and DJ Lethal’s touches, backed Durst’s vocals, still as strong at 55 as ever.

Durst introduced and brought Cypress Hill back onstage, a callback for fans who caught them earlier in the day. 

“We are so lucky to be here tonight with Cypress Hill,” Durst commented. “It feels insane.”

In true Limp Bizkit fashion, Durst called out the VIPs for being VIPs and dedicated songs specifically to people not celebrating a birthday. He brought out his rawest vocals of the night on “Eat You Alive,” a song littered with guttural screams and no restraint whatsoever.

But the biggest surprise of the night came when a photo of Tom Green sitting on a tractor was projected onscreen with the text “When Tom Green hears Rollin’.” Green, an Ottawa native who first crossed paths with the band back in 1999 when his MTV show was on the air and Limp Bizkit were the biggest act in music, was brought out to perform “Rollin’,” for which the crowd went wild. “Full Nelson” kept the chaos going with mosh pits upon mosh pits forming among fans on all sides of the stage. 

The biggest mosh pit and moment of the night arrived at the end when the band surprised everyone with a second performance of “Break Stuff.” Multiple pits, each well over a hundred people deep, clashed into each other. Having learned from previous crowd incidents, Durst gestured a hand signal for anyone who needed help, and the Bluesfest’s first-aid team stayed on surveillance of any issues all night.

As the show wound down, people helped each other up off the ground, comparing bruises and scratches from the pits and shouting for an encore, while security started clearing the exits. 

The energy that had built all day, from the first F!TH chant to the last “Break Stuff” mosh pit stuck around LeBreton Flats long after the crowd left, hanging in the air, ready for tomorrow’s crowd to pick it back up.

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Featured photo by Landon Entwistle via Bluesfest.