Nu-metal legends Papa Roach celebrate era-defining album with career-defining Wembley Arena show…
In the event of a nuclear apocalypse, it’s said cockroaches will inherit the Earth. Watching this sold out Wembley Arena show tonight, though, we’re starting to wonder if it’s actually Papa Roach who’ll outlast us all.
This evening, the band are celebrating a staggering 25 years of their nu-metal-defining, multi-platinum second album, 2000's Infest. And they’ve got 12,000 fans here to help them out.
A huge white banner hangs in front of the stage, emblazoned with that iconic dead roach logo. And from the second it drops to reveal the band, until their very last note, the Californians give it absolutely everything they’ve got.
Before that, Wage War are on hand to detonate things early. Singer Briton Bond roars his way through the Ocala metalcore sluggers' set, and the crowd roar back. It’s testament to their most recent record, 2024’s Stigma, that the songs that hit hardest are the likes of Blur, Tombstone and Magnetic. A closer of Manic shakes the room, war having been firmly waged. But even the hardest thing they have to offer can't outgun the ’Roach tonight.
Frontman Jacoby Shaddix seems like he’s eternally in his prime. His energy is infectious. His bars are white-hot. And it feels genuinely incomprehensible that a quarter of a century has passed since he first shouted the immortal words, ‘Cut my life into pieces.’ That line will have to wait for now, though… there’s a stack of hits old and new to get through first.
Pillars of fire and smoke cannons blast into the air as the devastating opening riffs of Blood Brothers – cemented into early 2000s pop culture by its inclusion in the legendary Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 soundtrack – tear the room apart.
“What’s up, fuckers?” beams Jacoby. “This is mother-fucking bucket list shit right here. We never thought we’d sell out Wembley.”
Their 2006 hit ...To Be Loved has the crowd whoa-ing along and is swiftly followed by Kill The Noise and Getting Away With Murder.
“We‘ve been doing this shit since we was little kids,” the frontman smiles as he introduces his bandmates. “We love metal and punk as much as we love hip-hop. We’ve been blending these styles since the mid-’90s. We ain’t ever gonna stop.” Honestly, we believe him.
Some of the frontman’s peers weren’t so fortunate, however. It's something acknowledged by the band as Forever segues seamlessly into the chorus of Linkin Park’s In The End.
“I self medicated and tried to destroy my life,” Jacoby confesses. “You don’t have to just look to music to heal, you can look to each other. You’re not alone.” And its not just words of support being offered tonight – each ticket sold raised £1 for suicide prevention charity CALM.
Leave A Light On sees a sea of phones light the arena, before the band start to crank the heat back up with huge sing-alongs to Scars, Help and Born For Greatness.
A back-to-back run of Between Angels & Insects, Infest and Broken Home sees crowdsurfers pour over the barrier, as the big screens show clips of the band as 20-something-year-old kids boarding private jets, doing dance routines backstage and appearing on late night talk shows. What a ride.
There’s perhaps no greater way to properly give context to their closing song than by playing snippets of equally era-defining tunes: Korn’s Blind, Deftones’ My Own Summer (Shove It), Limp Bizkit’s Break Stuff and System Of A Down’s Chop Suey.
“Just epic fucking riffs one after another. That’s what we’re doing right here,” grins Jacoby, before the band drop an epic of their own: Last Resort. The crowd moshes in unison as pillars of pyro blast all around onstage. It’s chaotic and cathartic. And then, as suddenly as it all began, the show’s over.
It may have been 25 years since Infest first infected the world, but seeing the passion the band and their fans still bring to every song tonight, you wouldn’t know a single minute had passed. Heck, with this kind of longevity, our suspicion about them being armageddon-proof doesn’t seem quite so daft after all. Long live Papa Roach.
