Local bands will pay tribute to Family Values Tour. Count up the era's highs and lows

It's just one of those days — or at least it will be Saturday at The Blue Note.

Continuing a trend of local artists inhabiting the catalogs of influential bands, the Ninth Street venue will host Family Values Royale, a recognition of the Family Values Tour era of the late 1990s and early '00s marked by nü-metal and nü-metal-adjacent acts.

Area band Last American Cowboy will play the music of Deftones; Bilmore Boys will be the evening's Limp Bizkit; In Search of a Legend will take on Linkin Park; Hang Your Hate will dive into the middle of System of a Down's music; and Mani Pedi will sound the echoes of Korn.

With the show on approach, memories drift to a few very high highs of the era and some considerable lows. Here's a tally.

High: The entire Deftones catalog

Easily the best — and most consistent — band to be associated with this era, Chino Moreno and Co. mine the beauty from heaviness in a way many of their peers can't seem to imagine doing.

Whether it's in the immediate, confident discontent of "Adrenaline"; the dark urges and corresponding soundscapes of "Around the Fur"; the atmospheric guitar work and increased dynamic contrast on "White Pony"; the tension between elemental and spiritual revelations on "Saturday Night Wrist"; the curving catharsis of later records like "Koi No Yokan"; or the psychedelic digressions of projects like "Gore" — which make the heaviness even more meaningful and staggering — every Deftones album offers its own distinct gifts.

Low: Woodstock '99

The greatest black mark on Family Values bands, and perhaps the greatest indictment of their gravitational pull, came July 22-25, 1999. Watch either recent Woodstock '99 documentary — HBO's "Peace, Love and Rage" and Netflix's three-part "Trainwreck" — and you'll see figures like Korn's Jonathan Davis and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst at the center of much mayhem.

You see Durst exacerbate the issue in archival footage, and Davis wax mystical about the moment with a seeming cluelessness in the present-day.

Which came first: the music or the warped expressions of masculinity? That chicken-egg relationship might be hard to decipher, but Woodstock '99 made the connection painfully clear.

High: System of a Down's "Chop Suey"

One of the truly enduring anthems to emerge from the era, 2001's multi-platinum single "Chop Suey" brokers a remarkable — though deliberately volatile — unity; between acoustic strumming and electric shredding, chanted vocals and dirge-like melodies, the last confessions of Christ and 9/11-era sensitivities to lyrics about "self-righteous suicide."

The song, which earned System of a Down a Grammy nomination, has been streamed nearly a billion times on Spotify.

High: Limp Bizkit's cover of "Faith"

Sandwiched in a series of heavy covers from peer bands — after Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams," before Orgy's "Blue Monday" — Durst and Co.'s take on George Michael is the best thing they ever recorded.

More than 25 years later, the track's drop still feels genuinely surprising. While Durst puffs out his chest throughout, flawed and exposed moments exist here that would be scrubbed from future Limp Bizkit productions. And it's just fun.

Low: Almost everything else to come from Fred Durst's mouth

In a famous profile of Axl Rose, John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote this about the era that a reformed Guns N Roses sought to navigate: "The justification for rap-rock seems to be that if you take really bad rock and put really bad rap over it, the result is somehow good, provided the raps are being barked by an overweight white guy with short hair and forearm tattoos."

Sullivan wasn't explicitly writing about Fred Durst, but of course he was writing about Fred Durst.

High: Korn's "Freak on a Leash" video

While the Bakersfield, California band's musical output remains slightly overrated, the Grammy- and MTV Video Music Award-winning clip for their 1999 smash remains a triumph. Directed by comic-book legend Todd McFarlane, the video is a dark wonder of ominous animation, mind- and bullet-bending cinematography and frontman Davis' charismatic fury.

High: Linkin Park's melding of rock and hip-hop

Over a span of almost 20 years, Linkin Park released a string of albums that sold gold, platinum or multi-platinum. The band's success is owed, at least in part, to knowing its way around a hook. Sometimes those hooks came courtesy of late singer Chester Bennington, sometimes from MC Mike Shinoda.

The pair's chemistry showed a way forward for rap and rock that was nothing like what Sullivan wrote about; that Linkin Park also collaborated with the likes of Jay-Z, Rakim and Black Thought illustrates their ability to find the soul of hip-hop and to innovate in and around the genre.

Low: B-list peers and a next generation of imitators

While Family Values headliners held their own (mostly), fellow festival bands such as Staind, Static-X and Deadsy diluted the brand, as did some of the acts that followed in their footsteps. Check the "Followed by" tab for bands like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park at allmusic.com, and you collate a crew such as Cold, Machine Gun Kelly and The Chainsmokers.

Saturday's show starts at 8 p.m.; tickets are $7-$15. Visit https://thebluenote.com/ to learn more.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Area bands pay homage to Korn, Deftones and more at Blue Note show