Boom! Another stagediver embraces the singer, spills his dinner money and nearly cracks his head on the ceiling. "You guys are awesome, this is beautiful," gushes the singer, a dreadlocked icon of positivity in a dark, dark universe, hugging another couple of clean-cut moshers under his arms. "It is our blessing to be here," he concludes, before lashing into the first great rock anthem of the new year, 'Alive'. The world is a smashing place, we are all beautiful and heavy metal has decided to provide decent role models for today's impressionable youth.
Stranger things have happened in music, perhaps, but it's hard to think of many right now. P.O.D. are four faintly imposing men from Southern California whose second album, 'Satellite', is the biggest nu-metal album in the States since Linkin Park's all-conquering 'Hybrid Theory'. And, as this British debut show begins with furious riffs, frenetic dreadlock swinging and broadly competent rapping by frontman Sonny, it's easy to see why. P.O.D. take the rabble-rousing, relentlessness and, let's face it, haircuts of Rage Against The Machine and replace their radical leftist sentiments with subject matter that's much easier for the typical American to assimilate.
To whit: isn't Jesus great? For P.O.D. are that unlikeliest of beasts a credible Christian nu-metal band. In fairness, they hide it pretty well tonight. Sonny's lyrics are largely incomprehensible beneath the big rock guitars, so you're left to interpret his occasional moist glances towards the roof as acknowledgement of a higher power rather than a dodgy light. 'Satellite' sometimes gets bogged down by the earnestness of their message, and their penchant for gruesome passages equally influenced by both dub reggae and Korn. But mercifully, we're spared most of that, in favour of drilled, undeniably impressive tunes like 'Set It Off' and the aforementioned 'Alive'.
The one horrible exception is 'Youth Of The Nation', a clod-hopping tribute to Jah and being nice to each other, with massed backing vocals from P.O.D.'s pubescent fans. The result is a bit like Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' if Roger Waters had thought education and thought control were actually good, socially improving ideas.
All this, of course, makes P.O.D. rather subversive in the context of nu-metal's customary ersatz rebellions. Most of the time, we want extreme rock bands to voice unpalatable taboos, to speak the unspeakable. Now one of them instructs us to forget our normal values, be good kids and respect the Lord how radical is that? Within months, P.O.D will be one of the biggest bands on the planet: as our immoral guardians would say, something must be done.
