The tour was preceded by whirlwind political campaign-style tour named "Korn Kampaign" (from August 17, 1998 in Los Angeles through September 1 in Phoenix) to promote the release of their album Follow the Leader. It took the group all over North America to spread the news of their "Family Values" platform to hordes of fans at special "fan conferences" that were organized at every stop along the tour route. Korn chartered a jet, which took them to record stores in such cities as Riverside, Mountain View, Sacramento, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Toronto, Atlanta, and Dallas. The band talked to fans at every stop, answered questions during the special "fan conferences" and signed autographs. Jim Rose hosted the entire "Kampaign" tour. Celebrities at various stops included Ice Cube and Todd McFarlane.
On October 27, 1998 due to the beginning of shooting the movie "Next Friday", Ice Cube was replaced by alternative metal band Incubus for the remaining five dates. The band is featured on the Family Values Tour '98 CD release with their song "New Skin", and can be also seen during performance of "All in the Family" on the DVD release. Ice Cube did not appear at the October 26, 1998 Wings Stadium (Kalamazoo, MI.) Incubus was present instead.
Feud with Rob Zombie
Initially, Rob Zombie was to be one of the artists participating on the tour, but was dropped due to high production costs, each Rob Zombie concert costing $125,000 in band fees and show production alone. Therefore, Rob Zombie was replaced by Germanindustrial metal act, Rammstein. However, the given explanation was somewhat confusing. The Firm, Korn's management, said Zombie continually expressed dissatisfaction over not wanting to work with a hip-hop act on the bill, and was supposedly lectured by Rob Zombie management that "rock kids don't like hip-hop." Rob Zombie's manager, Andy Gould said those comments were false. He explained that Zombie has never even spoken to Korn, so he could not have made those comments.[3] Although the statement released by Korn's management resulted in anger, Rob Zombie shared no bad blood with the bands participating in Family Values Tour. Next year, in 1999, both Rob Zombie and Korn got on good terms again, and launched the highly successful "Rock is Dead" tour together.
Trivia
In one of the more infamous moments, Rammstein's band members dressed up for Halloween. Most of them were practically naked with the exception of Richard Kruspe, who wore a wedding dress. Police dragged the members off the stage for indecent exposure and the concert ended after a mere 10 minutes.[4]
Korn helped to promote then-unknown acts. The results were very promising. Rammstein's album "Sehnsucht" achieved platinum certification in the United States, also Orgy's debut "Candyass", which was released through Korn's own record label, Elementree Records, achieved similar success. Limp Bizkit enjoyed even greater success which helped them establish themselves as one of the leading acts of the nu metal wave at that time, and enjoyed enormous commercial success.
The 28 dates of Family Values Tour grossed $6.5 million[5] and over 243,000 fans purchased the fan-friendly ticket prices that ranged from $26.00 to $29.50.[1]
Critical acclaim for the tour started to pour in as soon as it all started. As Jim Farber noted in a review of the September 25, 1998 event at the Continental Arena in New Jersey in the New York Daily News:
"[...] The 4 and half hour show, a hip-hopDJ held equal ground with a drummer in the set by Limp Bizkit, a keyboardist added dance club beats to the classic metal of Rammstein, and two guitarists translated the needling sound of electronic hip-hop into the manic creations of Korn [...] This tour created a bold new profile for hard guitar bands taking cues from the music that replaced them as the soundtrack to masculine aggression."[1]
The Los Angeles Times noted that the tour "certainly proved to be one of the rock spectacles of the year,"[6] while Steve Morse of the Boston Globe said that "Korn delivered the goods...by accelerating out of the box with a savage confluence of heavy metal, rap, and primal screaming from singer Jonathan Davis."[1]
John Scher of Metropolitan Entertainment agreed: "The Family Values Tour was not only a great business success, but more importantly, a rousing success with the fans. I think, to a great degree, we accomplished what we set out to: creating a fun, wild evening with a unique atmosphere and incredible music."[1]
Jonathan Davis, lead singer of Korn said: "We're creating some rock history with this tour. From that first show, I had goosebumps upon goosebumps. This is something special happening here. I hope that it becomes annual and it's gonna last."[1]
The initial edition of Family Values Tour was highly successful and it was documented on separate DVD and CD releases, both put on sale on March 30, 1999 via Immortal/Epic Records. The CD release achieved gold record status in the United States while DVD release went platinum.
Controversy
The Family Values Tour 1998 crossed the US, and the promotion of Follow the Leader continued in Japan and Australia.[7] However, Korn cited being accustomed to the American way of life, food, and culture, and The Family Values Tour 1998 had not come to Europe; the band never came there to promote Follow the Leader.[7] Their European fanbase, disappointed not to have seen them since 1997, would see their return in 2000 for a successful Issues Tour.[7]
^ abcPaquet, Sebastien (2002). Prélude et fugue (ed.). Korn de A à Z [Korn from A to Z]. MusicBook guides (in French) (1st ed.). Paris: L'Express éditions. pp. 37, 81. ISBN978-2-843-43101-2. OCLC470426200. Archived from the original on 2021-12-07. Retrieved 2021-08-13.
