Star fishing

Limp Bizkit's hot-dog-and-pony show

by Sean Richardson

"How am I supposed to give a fuck about you if you don't give a fuck about me?" asked Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst of all his detractors Monday night at the Worcester Centrum. Headlining a hot bill that also included Eminem, Papa Roach, and Xzibit, Limp Bizkit were in town to celebrate the eagerly awaited release of Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, their third disc and the follow-up to the top-selling Significant Other (both Flip/Interscope). Durst was introducing "My Generation," one of the disc's two lead singles and his ultimate embrace of generational spokesmodel status -- something that, just a few years ago, was about the most embarrassing thing you could accuse a rock star of aspiring to. But times have changed, and these days Durst and fellow willing spokesmodel Eminem are more than happy to entertain the kids all the way to the bank, leaving shy boys like Radiohead to drop a cool record every few years and spend the rest of their time desperately fighting off attention.

Durst's eagerness to play such a role is suspect enough, but on Chocolate Starfish the 28-year-old troublemaker once again comes across as a frighteningly accurate caricature of your average middle-class American teen. As the line-up on their current tour suggests, Limp Bizkit continue to mix rock and hip-hop to a degree that no one else in either genre has the balls to attempt. And Durst is one of the few rock guys able to incorporate the wild lyrical mood swings that make hip-hop so appealing to teenagers of all stripes. On Chocolate Starfish, he goes from crackpot social commentator to sentimental loverman, rabble-rousing lunkhead to party-startin' MC -- sometimes all in the same song.

It's appropriate, then, that the album's other lead single, "Rollin'," comes in two colors: the metallic "Air Raid Vehicle" and the Swizz Beatz-produced "Urban Assault Vehicle." (To add to the confusion over which song on the disc is the real new Limp Bizkit single, the group's summer hit "Take a Look Around" is also included.) "Rollin' " is a party anthem, so the "Urban Assault Vehicle" -- with its barrage of hypercharged verses from DMX, Method Man & Redman, and Durst -- is slightly more entertaining. Durst and Bizkit resident DJ Lethal rack up a hip-hop production credit of their own on "Getcha Groove On," where Xzibit joins the chorus of top-notch MCs who don't seem to have any problem throwing down with Durst despite his supposed lack of hip-hop cred.

"Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)" and "My Generation" are both worthy showcases for Limp Bizkit the band, who cruise along on the strength of guitarist Wes Borland's elastic riffing and John Otto's nimble drumming. Borland shares an obsession with digital sound effects and all-out metal with his most obvious forebear, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, but he's made a trademark of his own out of the clean, echoing single-note lines he plays behind Durst's psychedelic moments. Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland shows up to sing lead on the disc's most compelling quiet song, "Hold On," giving an odd sense of gravity to the proceedings, just as he did on Significant Other.

That's only the beginning of the celebrity appearances on Chocolate Starfish, which loses some of its impact among all the paparazzi. Although Durst tries to get into Christina Aguilera's pants yet again on "Livin' It Up," his real crush appears to be Ben Stiller, who gets a gratuitous shout-out on the same song, another one in the liner notes, and an annoying cameo on the album's outro. Mark Wahlberg and Third Eye Blind singer Stephan Jenkins are also recruited for voiceovers, though it's almost impossible to pick them out of the din. The opening "Hot Dog" is a weak dis on Trent Reznor dressed as a parody of NIN's "Closer" that crucially ignores battle rap's number-one rule -- never waste your time dissing a has-been.

Monday's show opened with "Hot Dog," but it was all uphill from there. Durst was typically down to earth, pulling a less-than-stunning girl out of the crowd for an on-stage kiss and riling up the masses for each pyro-enhanced run through the group's thrashin' oldies. "Full Nelson" worked as a potent update of "Break Stuff," but it was the band's musical side -- crooning Durst and all -- that came to the forefront on "My Way." The man sounded a little under the weather and still felt bitter enough about Christina to dedicate "Break Stuff" to her. But when "Rollin' " came around (hands up or hands down), he rocked the party right, setting a crew of breakdancing honeys loose on the stage and spreading some much-needed love into the mosh pit.